Sin
by NeedTheDark
Summary: Torn apart trying to come to terms with her role in the death of her father and her new criminal status, Liz becomes deeply disturbed. Can Red help her or will she destroy him too? "He was desperate to comfort her, but he couldn't do that now. Tonight had changed things – she had kissed him. She was feeling worthless." Lizzington angst and smut. Rated M so adjust filters!
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N Welcome to my new fic - 'Sin' picks up a couple of weeks after Red and Liz's escape. Liz becomes dangerously depressed and tempestuous, threatening everything. Can Red resist her dragging them both down? As ever I don't own The Blacklist, I just enjoy diving in the epic angst and smut pool these characters seem to generate :-)**_

So I ran to the devil, he was waitin'  
I ran to the devil, he was waitin'  
Ran to the devil, he was waitin'  
All on that day  
I cried

(Sinnerman, Nina Simone)

Red looked out over the still lake that lay just yards from the isolated house in which they were staying. Another day was drawing to a close, the sunlight glinting on the water, and the scent of wood and charcoal in the air. It had been over a week since they had crossed the border into Canada, winding their way west through the trees and mountains until it seemed like they were the only people on earth. Despite the beauty and calm of the place his heart was as heavy as it had been in many years. The weight of his failure to protect her from the truth – from ending up a fugitive like him – was only matched by the weight of the secrets he still carried. And then there was Liz.

After they had left she had slept with her head resting on his shoulder for most of the journey, only waking to change vehicles and when they stopped for supplies. He was loathe to wake her, wanting to put off for as long as possible the moment when he would have to see the look in her eyes when she remembered where she was and why. He kept as still as possible, ignoring the growing cramp in his neck and his own exhaustion. It put him in mind of sleeping beauty; how he wished then that she could sleep through everything, sleep safe and unawares until all the battles were done and it was safe to come down from the tower.

He didn't wish for that any longer. Since their arrival she seemed to have done just that – slept-walked through their days so far, offering mechanical responses to his questions, and deferring decisions to him. She had spoken so little. They had eaten together. Or rather he had eaten; she had barely touched her food, and had excused herself to go to bed early most nights or to sit alone outside, eschewing his company. He didn't blame her. It wouldn't occur to her that he might take some solace in her company, and he had no right to demand anything from her. That's what being a sin-eater meant.

Whether he liked it or not, she was a fighter – vibrant, opinionated and contrary - and to see her float through days like a ghost was painful. He knew she needed time to come to terms with everything that had happened, both learning the truth about her father's death, and with killing Connolly. Her killing Connolly bothered him greatly. It was a piece of the puzzle he didn't understand, an unexpected twist that would severely impede his plans for her. He'd tried asking her why she had done it at the time, but received no response. Eventually, he would have to get it out of her through one means or another.

Tonight he would have loved to have taken off for a walk around the lake, drawing the clean air into his lungs. Hell, part of him even conceded that it was a necessary part of his rehab and lord if Dembe wouldn't kill him when he found out he wasn't keeping it up. But he didn't feel able to leave her alone for long in her current state. He knew people, and what undue pressure does to the human spirit, and he had come to know her. He knew without a doubt that she would breakdown soon, and he would be there when it happened.

He entered the house and set about preparing dinner, as he had done every night since their arrival. He knew she didn't want it, but he felt it was important to maintain a routine, and give her a chance to talk should she want to. It was also important for him. He was playing a waiting game now, both with her and with the situation back in DC. The journalists had their task, and they had thrown down the gauntlet to the cabal. He was an extraordinarily patient man, but objected more than he liked to admit to his current feeling of helplessness.

Still, he could control the kitchen. He could try to feed her, to look after her that way. He tried to learn what she liked, to find things to tempt her. To tonight's beet and walnut salad he added pretty white wild garlic flowers he had found growing near the house. It had earned him a frown from her when she saw the dish, but he noted with satisfaction that she finished her meal.

Later in the evening he heard her come in from her perch outside the house, and he expected to hear her soft footsteps on the stairs as she made her way to bed, a pattern to which he had become accustomed over the days that had passed. He tried to hide his surprise and pleasure when the living room door opened and she came in, soft cardigan slung over jeans, her cheeks slightly red from the chill of mountain evenings. She walked over to the counter and poured herself a glass of scotch from the decanter, before facing him. He raised his own glass at her and nodded in a silent _'cheers'._

"I was thinking" she said slowly. "When a person kills someone, that's a homicide. But when you kill your own father, that's patricide. It's so terrible it has another name. It's a one way ticket to hell. Like in Greek tragedies."

Red regarded her from his position on the sofa, his frown increasing as she spoke. "It wasn't your fault Lizzie." His voice was low and strained. "The tragedy is that you had to suffer any of that. You were so…innocent."

"Innocent." she echoed hollowly. "Not anymore. Well I guess by your standards I might be." She knocked back her drink and looked at him square on. "You said you never wanted me to be like you, but I'm not. How many people have you killed? Tens? Hundreds even?" her voice was low and bitter.

He braced himself. She may be in pain, but this was the fiery Lizzie he had come to know before the events of the past few weeks. He should be pleased she was starting to try to make sense of it of it all, but he wondered how much damage she might do to them both in the process.

"Lizzie" he said softly. "Once you start counting – once you start measuring evil in terms of numbers – that's when you lose your humanity. Evil isn't how many people you've killed or hurt. It's whether you feel it or not. And that's what this is Lizzie. You're feeling it, and I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I failed to protect you from that. But what you're feeling – that's how you know you haven't lost your humanity."

She set her glass down and walked towards him, taking a seat beside him on the sofa. "My soul is darkened. That's what you said, isn't it? Misdeeds darken souls?"

He sighed and looked at her. "I was talking about myself. You…" he paused and took her hand. "I never wanted you to know what it's like to feel this way."

After a long moment she removed her hand from his and placed it on his thigh, the warmth of her fingers spreading through him. He looked down at her hand for a second and then back to her face. He wasn't prepared for her next move, although he thought bitterly afterwards that he should have been. She leaned forward abruptly and pressed her lips to his in a hard kiss. When he didn't respond she drew back and, seeing his shocked expression, laughed harshly before standing up.

"Wow! I must be really damaged goods if even the _concierge of crime_ is horrified by the idea of kissing me" she hissed.

It wasn't her fault, he thought bleakly. She was spiraling and feeling worthless – that was why she was offering herself to him. She didn't think she deserved better. That was something he understood – it was desperately painful, but he understood.

"Lizzie-" he said slowly, but by that point she had made her way to the sitting room door. He crossed the room and took her arm gently – "Lizzie" he said again, but she tore her arm out of his grasp and spun round to face him, her complexion burning with anger and shame, eyes brimming with unshed tears.

"No! You don't need to explain. I'm disgusting – I killed my own father. I've done terrible things. I am so evil that it's in my _skin_ – I killed the senator just by touching him. It's even in my DNA, remember? The warrior gene?" Her voice broke as she lost the battle with tears. "I am evil" she sobbed.

Red thought his heart would break listening to her. She was going through all the pain he had tried so desperately to spare her. He put his hands firmly on the tops of her arms. "No, Lizzie, no. There's nothing wrong with you sweetheart, I promise."

He was so gentle, so understanding, now employing his characteristic deep, warm tones to sooth her. He was so good at making her believe that he cared for her, and she almost leaned into him, but the knot in her stomach tightened with bitter remembrance. He hadn't kissed her back. He hadn't wanted her. She stepped back, looked up at him and spoke quietly but clearly, searching his face for his reaction.

"I slept with Tom. The day I shot Connolly. We slept together."

And there it was. The thing he had suspected but would never have asked and certainly hadn't wanted to be confirmed. It felt like a challenge; she was trying to punish him, or herself - probably both. He had promised Sam he would love her and protect her as his own; he knew he had no right to feel hurt, only concerned that she had gone back to a man who hurt her and betrayed her. She had chosen to come with him in the end, and that was what mattered.

Slight tension visible in his jaw was the only clue she had that her words had had any impact. When he spoke, his tone remained gentle. "You've suffered a great deal. It's completely understandable that you would want to seek a measure of comfort where you can."

His last words sounded pointed, like he was offering a typically gentlemanly means to explain away her behavior with him to save them both embarrassment, and humiliation burned in her cheeks.

"Why did you even bring me here?" She sounded exhausted. Defeated. "Why do any of it? I'm the one who killed my father. You don't owe me anything."

He looked at her silently with that implacable gaze before glancing away momentarily. When he looked back at her, he responded gently "tell me why you killed Connolly."

Liz frowned at his deflection but didn't respond.

He tilted his head slightly. "It wouldn't be wise to withhold information from me at this point. Not about this. You need to tell me." His tone, whilst still gentle, had developed an edge which made her shudder before she responded.

"Even now after everything you are refusing to answer one simple question of mine, so why should I answer yours?"

"Your question isn't simple. Mine is. It wasn't self-defense, Lizzie. Why did you do it?"

Liz looked at him defiantly for a moment before turning on her heal and leaving the room.

"Goodnight Reddington."

It was some hours later that he set down his last glass of scotch and climbed the darkened, creaky staircase to his room. He passed her bedroom door on the way, and heard quiet, muffled sobs from within. He closed his eyes for a second, fighting the urge to enter her room, to comfort her. But he couldn't do that now. Tonight had changed things – she had kissed him. She had never shown any romantic interest in him before, and when he had brought her here it wasn't with any expectation that her feelings towards him would change in that way. She was feeling lost, perhaps even indebted to him. Whatever her motivations had been, she was vulnerable, and he would not take the risk of going to her now, in her bedroom, four glasses of scotch down.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N Ok so this is where the smangst (smut-angst) portion of the story begins - very NSFW. Liz is slowly spiraling, and the one thing she seems to want is something Red can't bring himself to do. As ever I don't own The Blacklist or the characters that are having a hell of a bad time of it on my dime (figuratively speaking...I still make no money from this). I love reviews, do leave a comment :-)**

The next day, Liz entered the kitchen already dressed, to find Red sitting at the counter. "Good morning Lizzie". He handed her a mug of coffee, which she accepted wordlessly, her eyes downcast. She took a sip and then left the kitchen, making her way outside the house to sit on the edge of the deck overlooking the lake. The morning air was fresh, with sunlight glittering on the water. She spent a few minutes in silent reverie before the screen door opened and he joined her, taking a seat next to her. He felt her stiffen slightly, but her gaze was steadfastly set out on the water.

He leaned forward a little, clasping his hands between his knees. "Lizzie I'd like to talk about last night."

She turned her head away to look at a point on the horizon. "There's really no need. I'm sorry I made you uncomfortable."

"Lizzie-"

"Please, it's fine."

"It clearly isn't fine – you're upset. And we may be here for some time. In order for that to work we need to be on the same page."

Liz cradled her coffee mug in her lap, her thumb nervously rubbing her scar. "We are on the same page. I'm extremely grateful for everything you have done for me, I'd hate you to think I wasn't. I understand that you've made significant sacrifices to be here for me. You have your own life and people you'd rather be with…I hope this can be resolved quickly so that I don't take up anymore of your time." She finished stiffly.

Red frowned as he listened to her formal little address to him. "Is that what you think?" he paused. "Lizzie there's nowhere in the world I'd rather be." He reached for her hand but she was already standing and walking back into the house without another word. Red looked out at the lake, observing scoters flapping in the water, their heads bobbing beneath the surface. His concern for Liz was growing exponentially.

Aside from the fact that her feelings were clearly hurt, it was also apparent to him now that she really hadn't accepted the situation she was in. Even assuming that he would eventually expose the cabal and clear her in the murder of the senator, she had killed the attorney general of the United States and there was likely no coming back from that. He just wished she'd tell him why. All he wanted was to help her.

She appeared again a short while later, and walked past him down the wooden steps. "I'm going for a walk."

"Ok. Lizzie?"

"What?" She turned to face him, her chin creased with the effort of holding back her emotions.

"Don't go too far."

She shook her head slowly as though his simple warning had broken her heart. She turned from him wordlessly and took off on the path that led away from the lake into the trees.

BLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBL

The sun was low in the sky by the time she returned and Red was growing increasingly nervous. He stood on the decking, his eyes sweeping the treeline around the lake. When he finally saw her figure emerge from the trees in the distance, he pushed off from the wooden railing and stepped back inside the house.

When she returned, she entered round the back through the conservatory and jumped when she heard his voice behind her. "Though I say so myself, you missed a particularly fine lunch." She turned to see him sitting in a wicker chair in the corner, a stack of papers on the table next to him. "Let me fix you something, you must be famished." he continued.

She shrugged. "I'm fine thanks. I think I'll take a bath."

He rose from his chair then and approached her, his tone serious. "So this is how it's going to be? We're back to you barely speaking or eating?"

"You didn't seem to like the alternative" she responded flatly.

He sighed, placing his hands gently on her shoulders before speaking slowly. "This…" he paused. "This isn't about what I would like. I want the best for you sweetheart. That's all I've ever wanted for you." She looked up at him and he moved his hands to cup her face, stroking her cheek with his thumb." "You can be as angry at me as you want, but it's time to stop punishing yourself."

She closed her eyes and he drew her to him then, resting her head on his chest. She smelled of the outdoors, pine and charcoal, and without thinking he kissed the top of her head, breathing her in, his hand moving in little circles on her back. He heard her sigh faintly and came to his senses. He drew back slowly and attempted a cheerful smile. "Now. Let me make you something to eat. I promise you'll like it." She bit her lip and nodded, and they walked to the kitchen together.

BLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBL

That night, Red lay awake in bed reflecting restlessly on the day. He hadn't said so, but her prolonged absence had alarmed him considerably. The house was situated within acres of private land, but it wasn't inconceivable that they could be found, or even thwarted by wayward hikers. Retaining security personnel would have been too high a risk, and too high profile. Further to that, there were more mundane dangers to consider – falls in the rocky terrain, and the lake, which while beautiful, was treacherously deep and cold. His failure to protect her in DC had only served to heighten his concern for her safety now. The events of the past 24 hours had highlighted another danger, one to which he had not dared give proper consideration. He drifted off, remembering the scent of the outdoors on her skin and her sigh as he held her. That was the most dangerous thing of all.

The moment the doorknob to his bedroom turned, Red was wide awake. It was a sad reality of life on the run that he had become programmed to be attuned to everything going on around him, even when asleep. More often than not, if it was out of the ordinary he would wake at the quietest noise, performing a mental security assessment of the situation. He slept with his glock under the pillow, but he didn't reach for it. He knew it was most likely to be Lizzie at his door, and sure enough, she crept in, hovering uncertainly at the entrance.

"Come in Lizzie. Is something wrong?" His voice startled her, and he heard her inhale sharply in surprise before responding.

"I can't sleep." Her voice was barely above a whisper.

He raised himself on his elbows, grateful that he had chosen to sleep in a T-Shirt and pajama bottoms. He regarded her as she took several steps towards him, bringing her form into view as she was illuminated by the moonlight from the window. She was wearing a plain black tank top and sleep shorts – nothing more. Keeping his eyes steadfastly at the level of her face he said calmly "would you like me to make you some hot chocolate? I always find it does wonders for me, especially with a healthy slug of brandy mixed in…"

She shook her head. He watched as she approached him, coming to rest perched on the edge of the bed. His pulse quickened; as ever she was full of surprises. He knew she would struggle to come to terms with her new reality, and that she had a rather volatile temperament – he was as prepared as he could be for that. But this…this he had simply not prepared for. He observed her closely as she looked down at her hands, worrying her scar, and then looking back at him, her expression inscrutable. He tilted his head slightly to the side, proffering a silent question as to her intentions.

"Perhaps you're ready to talk then?" He said softly. "Tell me what happened with Connolly?" His voice was low, coaxing. He had to get her to open up about it sooner rather than later, but she sighed. "I don't have anything to say." She licked her lips unconsciously. A moment later he felt her hand slide under the covers and come to rest on his pajama clad thigh, her fingers moving in little, idle circles over the soft cotton. He waited for a beat, watching her like a hawk. She met his gaze then and began to slide her hand slowly up his thigh.

"Lizzie…" he said in a warning tone.

As her hand continued upwards, his breath hitched and he closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them he looked at her face, her eyes dark and lips now slightly parted. Before she reached his groin he took hold of her wrist firmly and removed her hand from under the covers, taking it in his. She squeezed her eyes shut. When she spoke again her voice was almost inaudible. "I'm so numb Red, I can't bear it. It's all _so empty_. I need…" Although her voice trailed off, he understood completely. "You need to feel" he finished simply. She nodded.

He knew he should send her back to bed – it was the noble thing to do. She was so vulnerable and he couldn't take advantage of that, aside from the multitudes of reasons which made him an unsuitable and unworthy partner for her. But when he thought about sending her away it seemed unconscionable; it would hurt her as much as him to do it. She had no-one but him, and the tempestuous trust they shared was once again hanging in the balance. He looked at her intently for a moment before making a decision. He wasn't going to sleep with her – he wouldn't do that. But he knew how to help her, just enough to make her forget for a moment, to help her sleep.

"Lie down Lizzie". His voice was molten. She did as he asked, allowing him to push her gently down until her head met the covers and she was looking up at him. He sat beside her, propped on one hand, gazing down at her with a soft smile and carefully brushing strands of her hair off her face with his finger, tracing the delicate line of her jaw. She closed her eyes as he brushed his thumb lightly over her lips before sweeping his fingers down the graceful curve of her neck, as if memorizing every detail of her. He stayed there for a moment, running his finger gently across her clavicle, before moving in time with her quickening breathing, ghosting his thumb over one hardened nipple, then the other through the fabric of her top.

She hissed at the sensation; he felt her body quiver slightly beneath him, and it took all he had to resist the urge to strip off her top and look at her, to touch her breasts and take her nipples between his lips. Instead, his hands continued their slow descent, his touch light and tantalizing - almost reverent. As he continued he studied her face closely, watching for her reactions. His hand paused at her waist, and he looked at her, waiting for fear or revulsion to cross her face, but all he saw when she opened her eyes was that they were dark with arousal. He could feel the warmth of her skin through her tank top, and then her hand, placed gently over his, pushing it slowly further down her body.

He didn't deserve to touch her, miserable monster that he had become, not Sam's little girl, not his own sweet little savior. But as she lay beneath him, guiding his hand to where she wanted it, he accepted that she was now a grown woman – a very beautiful woman at that– with her own desires. She had been married for God's sake, he thought. The way she was looking at him now with those enormous blue eyes presented a very real challenge to his self-restraint. She arched her hips slightly upwards towards him in a silent plea for him to give her what she wanted – what she needed.

Watching her face for any sign of doubt and finding none, he allowed his hand to slip slowly inside her shorts, moving down until he was touching her intimately. He breathed in sharply as his finger slid along her opening - she was so wet, so aroused – it was exquisite. Without breaking eye contact he began to explore her there as he had the rest of her body, caressing her gently, lovingly, causing soft little moans to fall from her mouth as he lightly stroked her clit. She began to tremble and he placed his other hand firmly at her waist, holding her in place as he slid first one then two fingers into her, wishing that he could bury himself deep inside her, and knowing that it could never be.

Before long she came in his hand with a cry which she stifled, pressing her lips together, closing her eyes. He bent down and kissed her, not on the mouth, but on her forehead, a loving gesture that was almost chaste despite what had transpired moments earlier. She lay still for a short while, breathing ragged and face flushed, before sitting up and meeting his apprehensive gaze. He waited for her to say something – anything – but she just leaned over to him, her hair lightly brushing his face, and placed a delicate kiss on his cheek. With that she rose and walked out of the room as quietly as she had entered.

He frowned at the door, unsure of the exact nature of what had just passed between them, an uncertainty which quickly gave way to shame that he had not behaved better, that he had allowed her to do something she would surely regret. The moment she had sat beside him on the bed he had become achingly hard in anticipation of something that could surely never happen, and now he wrapped his hand around himself, unable to resist the urge to do so with her essence still on his fingers. It felt inappropriate, desperate even, and he allowed the bitter sting of guilt to bring him to a painful climax.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N Red and Liz deal with the aftermath of their encounter in their own way, but what little peace they find is soon shattered. Let the angst fest ensue. As ever, I own nada! Enjoy and please do review!_

Days had passed since their encounter, and neither of them had said a word about it. It troubled him greatly that she hadn't acknowledged in any way that it had happened, but then, perhaps out of respect for her, perhaps out of guilt, neither had he. He was also troubled by the frequency with which he recalled the velvet feel of her mouth under his thumb, his surprise and delight at finding her so aroused, and the heart-breaking openness of her face as he had brought her to orgasm. Heart-breaking in particular, because it was in such marked contrast to the closed, distant girl with whom he shared the days there. She'd barely met his eye over the last few days, although whether that was as a result of her feelings regarding that night, or whether it was a continuation of her general depressed affect of the last couple of weeks he couldn't tell.

Further, although he and Mr Kaplan had arranged that she would only reach him on the satellite phone when there was significant news to share, he was growing increasingly restless at the lack of contact. It was now several weeks since he had enlisted the world's most tenacious investigative journalists; he should definitely have heard something of the cabal's response. It was not a concern he was willing to share with Liz at this point, even had she asked for news, which, notably, she hadn't. When there was something concrete to tell her, he would. When he tried to think of her and the future he might be able to carve out for her his thoughts were often drowned by a singular, wretched desire that she would come to him again at night. It was a thought he did his utmost to quash.

After several days during which they had barely spent an hour in each other's company, she joined him in the kitchen as he was preparing dinner. As he reached for a jar in the cupboard a sharp ache shot through the right side of his chest and she heard him hiss a little in pain. She watched him continue preparing the meal and after a moment she spoke. "How's your chest?"

He looked over his shoulder at her with a small smile. When he didn't speak she rolled her eyes at him.

"You know… the gunshot wound to your chest?"

"It's healed nicely thank you. Just the occasional twinge." He chuckled as he scooped up diced tomatoes and threw them in the pan. "Frankly, it's remarkably less painful now Dembe isn't presiding over my therapy like a nanny goat."

She looked at him seriously. "Are you still doing therapy? I mean…you're doing whatever you need to do?"

He tutted in annoyance at the question. But then, he thought, perhaps it was better for both of them that she see him as an invalid. He lifted the wooden spoon in his hand to taste the sauce. "Delicious though I say so myself. Taste?" He pointed the spoon in her direction.

She shrugged. "I'm sure it's fine. Red… the therapy? You're doing it?"

He gave an exaggerated sigh. "More or less. Less of the aimless walking Dembe so delighted in imposing on me." This was shaping up to be the longest conversation he'd had with her in a while. He wished the subject matter were different.

"You should keep it up."

He laughed then and turned to face her. She sat casually at the table with one foot resting on another chair, eyeing him solemnly. "Well aren't you as bad as he is."

She shrugged again. "Dembe isn't here, so… I guess it's up to me. You should go for walks." She turned her face away from his gaze for a moment. "I could come with you if you want."

"You want to walk me like that dog of yours Lizzie?"

She frowned, but when she looked up she saw the humor in his eyes.

"Hudson would be far less trouble than you."

"I've no doubt." He paused for a moment. "A walk in the morning it is then."

She nodded wordlessly and turned back to look out of the window.

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After that, to their pattern of near silent existence they added a walk in the mornings. After the first day he hadn't expected her to continue, but on the following days he found her waiting for him in the kitchen each morning, and each morning they would set out in what he hoped was at least a companionable silence. Spring was blossoming around the lake, and now and again they would see a blue jay, or a patch of wild flowers that he hoped charmed her as much as they did him.

One morning they saw a streak of black and white in the undergrowth, which he told her amusedly was probably a skunk. Before he could launch into one of his animated tales she surprised him with one of her own, a childhood story about one of Sam's attempts to take her camping in which he'd struggled to put up the tent and spent most of the time fretting that she would encounter a bear, only to find that she'd befriended a skunk. Although the story was short and her delivery a little stiff, Red had to look away to hide the prick of tears in his eyes as he listened to her talk about Sam and her childhood.

That afternoon, she entered the living room and saw him sitting at the table by the window with a chess board laid out in front of him, shirt sleeves rolled up under his vest and his fingers steepled against his chin. She approached him hesitantly. "What are you doing?"

"Ah, you've caught me playing with myself" he said suggestively. If she picked up on the double entendre she didn't acknowledge it and he instantly regretted being flirtatious. Her silence on the subject of their encounter had more than confirmed to him that he needed to dial it back. He half expected her to leave the room, but instead her shadow fell over the board.

"Can I play?"

He looked up at her. "Do you know how?"

"I know the basics. Maybe you could teach me."

He motioned for her to sit, and reset the board. "Let's play and see how it goes. I'll go easy on you for now – we'll save the grand master secrets for later."

"I wouldn't expect anything else from you."

He raised his eyebrows as he looked at her but her eyes were fixed on the board. "Indeed." he responded at last. "Your move."

He observed her intently as they played, but she seemed determined not to meet his eye, concentrating instead on the wooden, slightly shabby and well used pieces as they moved around the board. He was still engrossed in deciphering her closed affect when he heard her say "checkmate!" in a sudden, animated squeal.

"So it is! And you used a Sicilian defense – I thought you said you didn't know much about chess." He smiled at her quizzically.

"I don't. I mean, I didn't know that's what it's called. But it turns out chess isn't that much different from profiling."

His smile broadened. "Really! How so? How would you profile our game, Lizzie?"

She took a breath and looked at him from across the table. "I figured you wouldn't sacrifice your queen." She saw his eye twitch almost imperceptibly. "You can be ruthless. You're willing to take enormous risks, but you have limits. You're a gentleman. You live by a code, however twisted it might seem to others. You value loyalty above all else. It's your greatest strength… and it also makes you vulnerable. I targeted your queen because I knew you'd defend her, and that would distract you."

She thought she saw his smile begin to fade, but a second later he laughed and congratulated her on a good game. He stood and extended his hand. They shook, but when he released his grip she didn't let go of his hand, turning her face up towards him instead. He paused, then freed his hand and placed it on her shoulder for a moment before leaving her alone at the table.

She didn't see him again for hours, and she wondered if he had been avoiding her after their game. That evening he stepped in from the deck with the satellite phone in his hand, looking pensive. She looked up from her seat on the couch and placed her book down beside her. He leaned against the doorframe, tapping the phone against his thigh for a moment before speaking. His tone, whilst gentle, filled her with a sense of foreboding. "Lizzie, there's been a development. Will you join me outside for a moment?"

She nodded silently and rose to follow him outside. The last of the day's light was settling on the horizon and dusk was fast closing in around them. They sat side by side on the large, creaky swing seat that hung on the deck in amongst overgrown flower pots, Red's hands clasped together, whilst Liz's made apprehensive fists. When he began, she felt as though she was trying to hear him from very far away. She was so unused to candor from him, and so turned in on herself that for a moment she found it difficult to connect with the content of the mellow tones which now emanated from him.

"Lizzie, as you know, several weeks ago I met with a select group of investigative journalists from around the world, the idea being to enlist their help in exposing the cabal. Their response has been as I'd hoped – many of them have pursued stories across the globe, published what they can, where they can… Because of their bravery the cabal is on the back foot. Fire-fighting. I imagine that's why, so far, there haven't been substantive attempts made on their part to recover us." He paused, staring out into the growing gloom.

"That's good, isn't it?" Liz said quietly.

He bit the inside of his cheek, as if deliberating whether to continue. After a moment he took her hand. "It is what I had hoped for, yes. But things will change now. I heard from Mr Kaplan today that the cabal has begun to mobilize its response. A reporter who has done much of the work in exposing the cabal on the US front has been killed. It's a significant loss – not only had she run several major stories already, she was also garnering the support of other journalists and a number of public figures."

As he spoke he felt her stiffen next to him, and squeezed her hand. When he spoke again his voice had lowered, his tone softer, kinder. "I don't tell you this to frighten you, but to prepare you. We have a fight on our hands Lizzie. But I will do everything – _everything_ – in my power to protect you."

Liz felt her chest tightening, as though the weight of everything that had happened was settling on her heart, stopping her breathing. "What about the journalist?" she whispered. "No-one protected her." He didn't respond, and she couldn't make out his expression in the shadows. "Who was she? Did she have a family?" Silence. Liz raised her voice. "Do you even know?!"

"I know Lizzie." His voice was strained. "Her name was Janet Ellison, a freelance journalist mostly for the Washington Post. She had a husband and a young son….they will be taken care of."

Liz scoffed at that and withdrew her hand from his. "How did she die?"

"Lizzie" his tone warning, imploring.

"Tell me!"

"It was made to look like a mugging gone wrong" he said bleakly. "She…her throat was cut."

As he uttered those last words, sobs Liz didn't know she had been repressing rose to the surface in great shuddering gulps. Reality had found its way into her cocoon and it was far, far too bitter – she felt the overwhelming bite of fear and guilt consume her. As she began to cry she felt strong arms wrap around her from behind. She tried to pull away from him but he didn't let her, instead holding her firmly and reassuringly until she stopped fighting and went limp, exhausted with sobbing, allowing him to pull her onto his lap and hold her close as she cried herself out.

As he held her he kissed her hair again and again and then, instinctively, the soft skin of her neck as her head fell to the side against his chest. She turned inwards towards him, burying her face in his shoulder, her arms coming around him, her hands finding their way under his vest and clutching at his shirt as the pain she felt poured forth in wracking sobs. He felt her hands kneading him and her breasts crushed against his chest as she clung to him, and then, if he wasn't mistaken, the ghost of a kiss on his neck.

For a moment he was overwhelmed by the absurd lack of clarity as to what their relationship was, and appalled at his own inability to control it. Rationally he knew that eventually his failure to do so would only add to her hurt and confusion but right now…right now it didn't seem to matter. In that moment they were no more or less than two souls drawing bitter comfort from one another as the darkness fell.

 _TBC_


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N Liz and Red have two encounters, each devastating in their own way. Warning: This chapter is very NSFW. Heavy angst, heavy smut, and with a side of violence. You have been warned! As ever, not mine. Enjoy, and I do love reviews :-)**

The next day Liz kept to her room, and he decided against disturbing her. She needed time to process what he had told her. She was learning the hard way that one of the most difficult things about living on the run was watching events unfold, and being powerless to stop them. People get hurt, and you have no legitimate recourse, no rights or recognition save as that of an enemy of the state and the people. That was her identity now; her name was blackened, and, she had discovered, not even real. Her identity had been chosen for her, her fate, her future, all given to her by him. He held her entire life in his hands and slowly but surely he had closed his fist around her.

That evening when he came through to the sitting room he was surprised to find that she had emerged without his knowledge. She was sitting in the leather armchair, casually slouched down with her impossibly long legs crossed. She was wearing a loosely belted midnight blue cotton robe and it was clear from the deep v of visible skin at the front that she had little or nothing on underneath. He leaned against the door frame for a moment, taking in the scene as she eyed him from across the room. Volatile, unpredictable, hard and soft – she managed to be all of those things in this one moment. He watched as she picked up his fedora from the end table beside the chair where it had lain neglected since their arrival. She circled her fingers slowly around the brim, before turning her gaze back to him.

"It's strange how something as innocuous as a hat can become the lynchpin of a whole persona. This is your costume, isn't it? For your intimidating, criminal image?"

Red smiled and put his hands in his pockets. "I suppose it is. Surviving in the world in which I came to live required me to develop numerous attributes, one of which was a somewhat carefully cultivated façade. But then I also happen to like hats, Lizzie."

She studied the charcoal grey fedora for a moment longer before placing it on her head, titled to the side. She regarded him from under the brim, and cocked her head slightly, mirroring his mannerisms. He shifted a little, his trousers growing uncomfortably tight, and wondered if she had any idea how torturously arousing this image of her was. He suspected that she knew full well what she was doing to him. At first he had been concerned that her sexual interest in him was related to feelings of indebtedness, but this… this was more about control, control over her life that had been turned upside down. And for now at least, he would let her have it.

"Don't you look dandy" he said, a little hoarsely.

"Do I?" She responded bitterly. "Or do I look like a dangerous criminal? Like a killer? Do I look like I belong on the FBI's most wanted list?" her voice cracked a little as she spoke and he moved towards her then, desperate to salve the hurt she was feeling. He stood beside the chair and put a hand on her shoulder. "Lizzie". When she didn't look up he sighed before getting down on one knee in front of her so he could talk to her, see her face, and to show her that he was willing to surrender her the control she clearly craved.

"Listen to me" he said in rich, soothing tones. "You don't belong there, Lizzie you don't. You are kind, and brave… you're an incredible woman and you deserve the best in life. And you will get through this." She didn't respond. After a pause he patted her knee and made to get up, but she uncrossed her legs to lean forward, putting her hand on his shoulder to hold him in place. She looked down at him with dark eyes, and he wondered whether she was acting now in response to what he had said or in spite of it.

Her lips were tantalizingly close to his when she spoke. "Red…did you say I look _dandy_?" Her mouth curved into a wry smile. He returned her smile knowingly and responded in a low voice. "Ahhhh. Perhaps I chose my words poorly. Challenging. Seductive. Beautiful….Yes, those words would better describe how you look to me."

Despite her cool demeanor, he observed an enchanting blush creep into her cheeks, but her hand hadn't moved from his shoulder. "Lizzie, do you intend to keep me on my knees for the remainder of the evening?" His eyes twinkled as he watched her process his flirtatious comment.

"Maybe not the whole evening…"

He blinked at her and the humour in his eyes was replaced by fire. She'd done it again, turned the tables on him so quickly. Two could play that game. He slipped his hands delicately under her thighs, sliding her forward on the chair and balancing her on the edge before gently parting her legs, revealing what he had suspected was the case, that she wasn't wearing underwear under the robe. He looked up at her, and she seemed to stare back with equal fire, challenging him.

He began to run his fingers lightly up and down her inner thighs and then slowly bent to kiss and nip the sensitive flesh there. She hummed, first with pleasure and then frustration at his teasing, and dug her nails into his neck until he growled and she felt his tongue at her core at last. She was already trembling with anticipation but he wasn't having it – it wasn't like last time when he had gently but surely brought her to an all-encompassing, comforting orgasm. No, this time he seemed determined to make her wait, to tease her, taste her and explore her leisurely with his tongue, occasionally slipping two fingers inside her and withdrawing tantalisingly when she came close.

Each time she was at her peak, her fingers clutching at the leather of the armchair, he slowed, pausing to run his tongue over the marks where he had nipped her thigh, soothing the reddened skin, before returning his attentions to her aching centre. She squirmed in the chair, trying to fuck herself on his fingers, his tongue, but he held her still, gripping her thighs hard enough to bruise until she quieted and allowed him to continue at his own languid pace. He wound her up mercilessly, to the point at which she cried out involuntarily and was no longer capable of keeping as still as he required. Only when she begged him did he finally allow her release, closing his lips around her clit and bringing her to a shattering orgasm that was almost painful in its intensity. It was emotionally devastating, so much so that in the end she tried to fight it, as though he had torn through every barrier she had set up to guard herself from her own desolate fears, shame and guilt, releasing the darkness that clawed at the periphery of her mind.

When she came she made a sound that was close to a sob, and as he looked up at her he saw tears spill over as she shut her eyes.

"Lizzie - "

He reached for her hand but she withdrew it, placing it over her mouth to hold back her sobs before standing on shaky legs and moving quickly past him.

"Lizzie we need to talk about this…"

But she had left the room, left him on one knee on the floor in front of the chair. He rose to his feet with more difficulty that he would like to admit, and fetched a glass of scotch, before taking her place in the armchair. He savoured the taste of scotch and Lizzie on his lips, a dazzling combination. Idly picking up the fedora which now lay on the end table, he ran his fingers over the soft felt and it occurred to him that although he had now performed this most intimate act, he had still not seen her breasts, not held her, or even kissed her properly.

Theirs was a strange kind of intimacy, with all the silken wantonness of hidden desire coupled with a harrowing lack of verbal or emotional exchange. He just wanted her to talk to him. To tell him how she was, just if she was coping, or even if she wasn't. He craved it even more, he realised, than the exhilaration of feeling her soft thigh brushing against his cheek. Her tears were heart-breaking; the silence was becoming deafening.

That night, he drank. Really drank. The exquisite totality of his failure consumed him; failure to protect her from the truth, to keep her from harm, and now, he hadn't been able to protect her from his own baser instincts. She was clearly in no state to make good decisions about what she wanted, and she was utterly reliant on him for everything in their current situation. He'd been captured by the moment, too caught off-guard by her seductive behaviour to consider the ramifications; she was now clearly disgusted with him or with herself or both. He should never have let it get this far.

As he sank another scotch he was plagued by images of the times he had failed to protect her – he remembered finding her, barely conscious in Stanley Kornish's woodland hideout, instruments of torture laid out with alarming neatness, and Kornish, naked, standing over her. He'd never asked her what Kornish had done to her before he had arrived; they didn't have the kind of relationship where he could. He was a monster, and she'd said so.

Yet more scotch, and his thoughts began to scatter. He recalled his purge after Anslo's attack. The cabal's stunt had led him to murder a friend, and a young woman – a paramedic not even Lizzie's age whose pretty face pleading with him to spare her before he mercilessly ended her life haunted him still. He should never have touched Lizzie with those same murderous hands. He was depraved. He would destroy her. His feelings for her were borne from his own selfish need for redemption; even if she forgave him, or God forbid developed deeper feelings for him, it wouldn't change what he was. Finally, in a haze of alcohol induced stupor and misery he dragged himself to bed, where he fell into a fitful sleep.

~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~

As Red slept, Liz woke from her own nightmares. Much as in her sleep she had been tormented by guilt over many things, when she woke she focussed on just one. She shouldn't have left him like that. Now she couldn't focus on anything but the need just to be held by him, to hear his soothing tones.

This time when the door opened he didn't wake. For a second Liz thought he was talking to her, but he was talking in his sleep, his speech murmured, muddled. She padded over to him cautiously, and saw him lying on his front, his hand gripping the pillow. His shoulders were bare, and she could see pale raised tissue, scars stretching like veins on a leaf over his back. She gasped as the implications hit her like a fog being blown away. He would have to tell her the whole truth now. She reached out tentatively and patted his shoulder to wake him.

"Lizzie don't…go back"

She frowned for a moment before realising he wasn't talking to her – he was still in the grips of a nightmare. She sat beside him on the bed and shook his shoulder harder.

In an instant her world shifted in a dizzying whoosh and she was on her back on the bed, his hand deathly tight around her throat and the distinctive coldness of a gun barrel at her temple. His eyes were glazed and she caught a bitter smell of scotch and sweat as he leaned over her. She tried to speak but his hand was so tight that black spots appeared in the corner of her vision. She couldn't breathe. Instinctively she brought her hands up to claw at his arm, struggling weakly.

As she scrabbled at his arm she saw his face change into a mask of horror as he came to his senses and he removed his hand from her neck, recoiling back from her. She gulped down air and coughed hard. When she looked at him again he was out of bed breathing hard, removing the magazine from the glock with shaking hands before slamming it away in a drawer. He turned to look at her, his eyes dark with fear.

"Are you alright?" His voice seemed dark and distant. Empty.

She sat up on the bed, her hand rubbing her neck. "I…" she swallowed painfully. "I think so." She frowned at him, biting back tears of shock and fear. "What happened?"

He regarded her for a moment from his position a few paces back from the bed. He wore dark pyjama bottoms but his chest was bare. Under a generous smattering of silver hair she could see strong muscles at his chest and abdomen moving as he breathed, and a tattoo on his arm that she couldn't make out. He spoke slowly, his voice low and bitter.

"What happened, is that we proved without a shadow of doubt that this has to stop."

She swallowed again to hold back the tears, unable to conceal her wince from the pain in her throat.

"I'll knock next time" she whispered.

"Elizabeth that's not what I meant and you know it." He bit the inside of his cheek, his face contorted with the pain of what had happened. "I could have killed you."

"It was just a nightmare – that's what it was, right? A nightmare?"

He swallowed. "Yes. And we've learned the hard way that even my dreams… even my nightmares are dangerous for you. This stops."

"Red-"

"IT STOPS." His hand swept through the air in a gesture of cutting, of finality. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he spoke again his tone had softened. "Go back to bed Lizzie. We'll talk in the morning."

Still shaking, she slipped wordlessly off the bed and made her way from the room. His head was pounding as he turned to look at the space where she had been on the bed, the crumpled covers the only evidence of what had happened. After a moment he ran to the bathroom and knelt down just in time to throw up.

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N Red and Liz deal with the aftermath of his nocturnal attack on her, and receive some disturbing news. Mega, mega angst. You have been warned. I profit nothing from their emotional destruction.**

When he came downstairs the next morning she was sitting at the kitchen table, her palms closed around a mug of coffee. He noticed immediately that she was wearing a scarf around her neck – a sweet gesture, no doubt intended to spare him the pain of seeing the marks he had left on her. But it wasn't nearly enough to make him forget what he was. Damaged, and dangerous, like a wounded wild animal she had made the mistake of petting.

Her eyes followed him as he made his way to the counter, gripping it with his fingers until his knuckles turned white, before turning round to face her. He stared at the scarf.

"How bad is it?"

She fiddled unconsciously with the ends of the silk at her neck. "It's fine, really."

"Show me."

"Red-"

"Now. Please Lizzie."

She sighed and turned her eyes away from him as she untied the scarf, revealing deep purple bruises where he had gripped her throat. Red inhaled sharply and ran his hand over his face.

"It looks worse than it is" she said quietly.

He shook his head. "I am so deeply, deeply sorry.

"It wasn't your fault, I understand that." She paused before continuing. "I think you may have PTSD."

He raised his eyebrows and barked a harsh laugh. "Oh, is that the conclusion you've come to?" But then his tone softened. "Of course I have PTSD, Lizzie. You don't do the things I've done, or…experience…the things I have and come out ok on the other end. If you only knew what my life has been."

"Has anything like last night ever happened before?" She said slowly.

"No, not quite like that." His voice was quiet and deep. "I have a high tolerance for alcohol, but despite appearances I generally restrict my intake at least to some extent due to the need to stay reasonably alert. I failed to do so last night." He shook his head. "It's been years since I felt…"

"What?" she said softly.

But it was clear he wasn't going to continue, his mask firmly back in place. He shook his head and walked towards the kitchen door, passing her on the way. He paused and raised his hand gently as if to stroke her cheek, but let it fall to his side again. His green eyes looked haunted. "All you need to know is that it will never happen again, you have my word."

He was at the door when he heard her speak, quietly but clearly.

"I don't want to stop. Us… I don't want us to stop."

His face pale, he turned towards her but her eyes were downcast, fixed on her scar as she rubbed it nervously.

"You don't know what you're asking."

She looked up at him then, struggling to keep eye contact. When confronted with the full power of Raymond Reddington's piercing gaze it was difficult not to tremble.

"I know you" she countered.

"Elizabeth" he said gently "you don't know yourself at the moment, let alone the depths to which you would have to sink to catch a glimpse of what remains of my soul. You've had to endure a great deal. You're understandably extremely vulnerable at the moment and I can only apologise for allowing my own weakness to confuse what has been and will remain my primary objective – keeping you safe."

She looked up at him from under hooded lids. "You've always kept me safe, haven't you?" He didn't respond, only continued his relentless stare, putting her in mind of the King auction, the last time he had categorically shut down her right to care for him. "You saved me from the fire, didn't you?" She persisted. "When I came into your room last night. I saw the scars."

He closed his eyes for a moment. Of course she had seen them. In the midst of everything else it hadn't occurred to him. He hated that he had been so vulnerable. That his vulnerability had made him a threat to her. "A lot happened the night of the fire" he said guardedly. "A lot has happened since then."

"But you've never stopped caring about me. That hasn't changed."

He nodded, his voice so low it was barely audible. "No, that hasn't changed."

She sat back in her chair, still watching him, her lip trembling a little. "I shot Connolly because of you". His stomach knotted as he registered what she had said, but he said nothing, only waited for her to continue. "He told me that he was going to make sure you got the death penalty. Everything was so confusing. The only thing I held on to was that I had to make sure that didn't happen. Cooper was yelling at me not to do it but I did it anyway. Why do you think I did that, Red?" She looked at him, her eyes moist with the sting of tears.

He seemed frozen in place by the door, his brow knitted and eyes glittering.

She looked out of the window for a moment. "I've had a lot of time to think while I've been here" she continued. "I think I did it because I have feelings for you. I have for a while." She took a deep breath and looked back at him. "And now us…here…I'm falling in love with you."

He blinked for a second and swallowed hard, his heart thumping. When he eventually spoke in a gentle tone it was with uncharacteristic brevity. "I'm sure you're feeling many things at the moment Lizzie, but love isn't one of them." He paused. "In time you'll see that."

When it became clear that was the only response he would offer, she turned back to look out of the window, tears running silently down her face.

~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~

Not long afterwards Liz emerged from her room where she had sought sanctuary, drawn out by the sound of Red's voice. He was on the satellite phone in the living room speaking in low tones. She stood at the top of the stairs straining to hear, too afraid to move in case a tell-tale creak of a floorboard gave her away. She remained stock still as his voice floated up the stairs, amplified by the bare wood floors.

"Yes…but we'll need to move sooner than planned….no, no we haven't been compromised….I won't be with her this time…." Liz's stomach clenched in dull knots as she listened. He didn't want to be with her. He was passing her off already. She shouldn't be surprised really – not after their disastrous conversation earlier. She knew she should be embarrassed, behaving like a love-sick teenager. But the truth was she wasn't embarrassed. She was devastated. She knew she shouldn't have expected anything else from him, but that somehow only made it worse. He was so damaged, and now so was she. She always was.

Let him send her away. In that moment none of it seemed to matter – she had no-one left. No parents, no husband, no job, no friends or colleagues, and now Red, the one constant in her life for the past two years, now he had finished with her too. He had almost killed her last night, and now he was finished with her. He hadn't even fucked her in the end. Perhaps she should be grateful for that, she thought bitterly.

A sharp change in the tone of his voice drew her back to the conversation. He sounded anxious and alert. "Are you sure?...Can you trust your source?...I know. Either way it changes things…I won't take that risk…I can for now…Let me know as soon as you have it confirmed."

The conversation came to an abrupt end. When she was sure he was finished, she went downstairs, suddenly not caring that he would know she had been listening. Hell, she wanted him to know. She walked into the living room and folded her arms across her chest. He was sitting on the sofa, the phone still in his hand. His eyes were on the door as she entered, as if he had been expecting her.

"Exactly how much of my conversation did you overhear, Lizzie?" He sounded terse. Perhaps even angry. Good, she thought.

"Enough to know you want to get rid of me. Do it. I don't care anymore."

He made an annoyed sound in the back of his throat. "Sit down."

And she did, right next to him on the sofa. She was damned if she was going to make this any less awkward for him. He shifted uncomfortably but didn't comment on her proximity.

She looked at him belligerently. "Come on then. Tell me why you're making me leave." She lowered her voice then until it was almost husky, and slid her hand up his thigh. "I know it isn't because you don't want me."

She had expected that to anger him, but instead he closed his eyes for a moment, a pained expression on his face. "Please Lizzie, I can't." Pleading. Imploring. She didn't stop. She could feel him hardening in his trousers despite what he was saying and it excited her.

He swallowed and took her hand firmly in his, his eyes burning. "It isn't because I don't want you, although I suspect that's _exactly_ what you're afraid of."

She withdrew her hand sharply. He was right, and she hated him for it. He always knew. "So when do I leave?" she said, trying unconvincingly for nonchalance.

He sighed. "That's what I need to discuss with you. It's true I felt that it would be best if we parted ways at least for now, for no reason other than that after last night I have proven myself to pose an unacceptable risk to you. However, I received some news today which changes the situation. Neither of us are leaving, at least not for now."

Liz's stomach began to clench again. She hadn't eaten in a while and she felt lightheaded, clouded by a sense of foreboding. "What's happened?"

"This is going to be difficult to hear, and I need you to stay calm." She nodded wordlessly.

"I've received credible intelligence that Harold Cooper has been arrested for Tom Connolly's murder, and charged under title eight of the patriot act. You understand what that means?"

She paled. If moments before she had felt perfectly alone, she now realised that she truly was. Cooper had become like a father figure, and was the last person in DC who knew she had been set up.

"Lizzie?"

She nodded, trying to find her voice. "He'll be charged as a domestic terrorist for the assassination of the AG. They could seek the death penalty" she whispered.

"It's not a matter of if they will, but when."

Panic began to bubble up inside her. "But he didn't do it! My God, I shot Connolly and he was begging me not to do it. I told Ressler that, I told him Cooper had nothing to do with it! I don't understand how this could happen!"

"It's way out of Agent Ressler's hands. This is the Cabal's next move, Lizzie. It's a trap, designed to lure you out. That's why we can't risk moving at the moment."

"A trap? So you don't think he's really been charged?"

"Oh I'm quite sure that he has. Lizzie please understand that you've made a very powerful enemy. They will stop at nothing to find you and discredit you. If they do find you, you'll suffer the same fate that they have planned for Harold. It's imperative that you lie low now, and do exactly as I say."

She was shaking visibly now, he could see her shutting down. "Cooper…" she whispered.

He reached for her unresisting hand and softened his tone. "I assure you my people are doing everything they can for him. You have to trust me now."

She nodded without speaking and then rose to leave the room. Her eyes seemed deadened and his concern for her would have been greater had she not reappeared an hour or so later, looking strangely calm and quite beautiful. When they had stopped for clothes for her she had grabbed mostly jeans, shirts and sweaters, but he had taken the liberty of adding a few extra items. She stood before him now in a long blue skirt and white blouse, her hair loose. The sight of her brought a small smile to his lips, which she returned wistfully before speaking.

"I'm going for a walk - I need to clear my head."

He was relieved that she was taking things better than he had anticipated. Granted, she would need time to process everything, but she seemed to understand that at least. Aside from the news from DC, their conversation this morning had been difficult for her, and more devastating for him than she would ever know. He nodded gently, telling her not to go far, and she closed the door behind her. He watched her from the window, her figure becoming smaller and smaller as she made her way across the clearing outside the house and round the edge of the lake. He saw her perch on the jetty in the distance, looking out over the water, framed by trees and the light of the fading late afternoon sun.

It was moments such as these that allowed him to forget, for just a few precious minutes, the stark reality of their situation. He smiled and returned to the briefing papers Mr Kaplan had sent him on the Cabal's movements since the first wave of media response, trying to find a link to Cooper. It caused his brow to furrow – reality coming back too soon. After a while he glanced back again to reward himself with another glimpse of Lizzie by the lake. When he looked up she was gone.

 _TBC_


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N We find out what happened to Lizzie – warning this chapter may be upsetting. So. Much. Angst. As ever, not mine. Please do review (and please don't yell at me for doing this - this fic is about exploring the emotional fall-out from their crazy situation).**

He knew that the most likely explanation was that she had taken off for a walk in the surrounding trees, but he felt uneasy. He'd been distracted all day, going over and over the moment she'd said she loved him – was falling _in love_ with him - his gut twisting more every time. Yet now he found himself thinking back to their later conversation, employing a trick of his, looking for something, some detail he had overlooked. Her eyes had been a bit glassy – she was upset, that was to be expected. Later on though she had seemed quite calm, which he'd thought was an odd transition. Shock, perhaps. She'd changed her clothes. And then…shoes. She hadn't been wearing shoes. How could he have missed that.

He was on his feet in a heartbeat, moving fast out of the house towards the jetty. When he arrived he called her name, and it echoed through the trees like a taunt. There was no reply. He scanned the surface of the water and the treeline and saw nothing, but he was already tearing off his socks and shoes. Exhaling to protect his lungs from the impact of the cold, he slipped carefully off the jetty into the freezing water before diving down, searching desperately for a glimpse of her.

He was a strong swimmer with powerful arms, but the ice cold of the water seemed to stab him like a thousand tiny needles with each stroke. Much as the weather was warm and sunny, the lakes were filled with mountain water - melted ice and snow – and were dangerously cold. His mind was growing foggy and his chest hurting, running out of air, urging him to go back to the surface. The pain in the right side of his chest was becoming agonizing. As he was about to go up, he saw a glimpse of white ahead of him and swam towards it with all he had. As the shape of her face and flowing hair came into view she seemed suspended in the water, like a ghostly mermaid.

He couldn't see, and each time he thought he'd reached her she was still there ahead outside his grasp. Finally, his hands met cloth and skin and he clutched her with one arm, swimming desperately for the surface. His body was screaming and his mind blank; there was nothing now except getting her out. When they surfaced, he gasped desperately for air and tilted her chin up hoping against hope that she would do the same. She didn't. Much he had felt relief when his hands had grasped her in the water, it was fast replaced with dread. He was a former naval officer; the water was freezing and he knew she had been under long enough. Perhaps too long.

He wasted no time getting her back to the shore, keeping her chin tilted and swimming for the nearest point. He dragged her out and laid her on the ground, leaning down to listen for her breathing whilst feeling for a pulse. Nothing. She was deathly pale and her sodden white blouse clung to her skin, puckering like blisters where the material was ruched and waterlogged. Trying to suppress his panic, he bent down and opened her mouth, breathing into her, willing her to respond. _Come on Lizzie. Don't do this sweetheart, please._

He had made it clear to his people and even to her, he thought, that her life was more important than his. He knew it, but in that moment for the first time it was crystallized for him as he wished with everything he had that he could give more than his miserable breath, that he could somehow pour his entire life force into her if it would bring her back. He stopped after five breaths and clasped his hands together, beginning chest compressions, following the procedure automatically, just as he had been taught during his time in the navy. As he worked he heard gruff cries in the background, before realizing that they were coming from him.

When she didn't respond, he gave two more rescue breaths before resuming chest compressions, and every time he brought the heels of his hands down it was harder and more desperate. As his hands pounded her frail little body he was sure he would hurt her – possibly break ribs- but then, perhaps she was gone and would never be hurt again, by him or anyone else.

On the seventh, punishing compression she made a small strangled sound before beginning to cough, and he felt tears of anguish, fear and relief slip from his eyes, mingling with the lake water on his skin. He immediately turned her on her side so that she could expel the water from her lungs and stomach, which she did, coughing and retching violently. After she was finished he held her tightly, brushing her tangled hair off her face, his breath shuddering.

"Lizzie" he choked. "Lizzie, what did you do." As she lay in his arms she opened her eyes a fraction before closing them again, a single muted sob escaping her lips. "No Lizzie, keep your eyes open sweetheart, look at me. Can you hear me?" She nodded and then the relief really hit him, along with an aching coldness that made him tremble. He bent down and kissed her forehead before rising to his feet, hauling her into his arms.

Her skirt which had looked so fresh and light on her was now heavy and dark with the weight of the water. He carried her back to the house with some difficulty, his steps a little uneven, his own clothes wet and clinging uncomfortably to his skin whilst his chest ached from the exertion. He took her upstairs through her bedroom and into the en-suite, where he sat her gently on the bleached wooden window seat, before leaning against the wall to catch his breath. She stared vacantly at the floor, shivering.

Breathing hard, he tried to speak calmly, although he felt anything but. "Lizzie, you're so cold, we need to get you out of these wet clothes right now. Do you think you can do that? Lizzie?"

She didn't respond. He knew she was in shock, but that wasn't going to make this any easier, or feel any less inappropriate despite the intimate moments they had shared. He grabbed a large towel and a night shirt from her bedroom before pulling her gently on her shaking legs to a standing position. He carefully undid the buttons of her soaked blouse and peeled it off before removing her bra, standing behind her as he did it so as to preserve her modesty as best he could under the circumstances. She didn't protest, even as he hooked his fingers hesitantly under the waistband of her skirt and panties, sliding the wet garments off. He immediately wrapped her in a large, luxurious towel, her skin cold and damp under his fingers, his own hands shaking from the cold and adrenaline.

He worked quickly and methodically to get her warm and dry, circulating the towel gently to warm her up and toweling her hair. Even though she was standing right in front of him, he thought that he had never felt further away from her. She seemed so frail; she was shivering, her collar bones and shoulder blades protruded and dark marks on her neck seemed to silently accuse him. He longed for the vibrant, rosy-cheeked woman who had thought nothing of puncturing his carotid with his own pen. She was magnificent, and utterly fearless. Now he looked at her sad little body; she was still beautiful, but so fragile, perhaps already broken. Had he done this to her?

Once she was dry, he slipped the night shirt over her head, and guided her out of the bathroom to the bed, his hand resting gently on her lower back. He wrapped her in a warming blanket, drew back the thick covers and she slipped obediently between them. He was desperate for her to talk to him, to tell him it had been an accident, to say something, anything. But she had closed her eyes as soon as her head met the pillow, if not to sleep then to indicate that she wasn't ready to face him. He was still wet and needed to get warm and dry himself.

He changed quickly, and returned with hot soup for her which he placed on the nightstand, and a first aid kit. He sat on the side of the bed, the dip in the mattress causing her to open her eyes. "How are you feeling? Are you warming up?" He took her wrist and felt her pulse before reaching out to feel her cheek, relieved to find that she was considerably warmer. She watched as he removed a syringe from the first aid kit and filled it carefully.

"What's that?"

He looked at her apprehensive face, grateful that she had finally spoken. "It's a broad-spectrum prophylactic antibiotic – you've had a lung full of lake water, it's best to be safe. Neither of us can afford to get sick at the moment." She pursed her lips, regarding the syringe. He gave her an apologetic smile. "It has to be a shot I'm afraid – it saves space in the kit not having full courses of antibiotic pills, and you never know if you'll be in a position to take them at the right time – one of many strange things one learns about the necessities of life on the run. May I?"

She nodded briefly before turning her head away. He rolled up the sleeve of her night shirt, before tearing the packaging of an alcohol wipe open with his teeth and rubbing it on her arm. She winced as he slid the needle in, but didn't look. "There, all done. Have some soup Lizzie, you need to eat and keep warm. " She didn't move. " _Lizzie_ " he said firmly.

She sat up against the pillows, knees drawn up to her chest under the covers and sipped the soup slowly, her eyes downcast. He watched her in silence for a moment before tentatively placing his hand on top of the covers over her feet, patting her gently.

"How does your chest feel? Are you injured?"

He saw her brow furrow slightly. "I'm fine."

He sighed. "Chest compressions can be brutal" he said gently. "Does it hurt when you breathe?"

She shook her head wordlessly.

"Did you fall? Hit your head?"

Again, nothing. It was exasperating. She was exasperating. She had been from the first day they met in the post office. He needed her to care about herself as much as he did; instead she'd been running after killers alone, living in dingy motel rooms, and now this – he couldn't bear it. He fought the urge to hold her down and examine her properly for injuries, so that he could make an informed decision as to whether she needed more medical attention than he could provide. There was a contingency plan, although it carried risks, especially now.

Instead, he asked the question to which he was dreading hearing the answer. "How did this happen, Lizzie? Talk to me."

She looked away from him again, and for a moment he thought she would remain silent.

"It was so cold" she whispered. "The water."

He nodded slowly. "Yes. In the spring the sun melts snow and ice off the mountains and it runs into the lake. Did you slip and fall in? You went out without your shoes. You were in shock."

She closed her eyes. "It hurt, Red." She whispered. "I didn't know it would feel like that."

For a moment he felt as though he were submerged again, the stabbing cold wracking his chest. Her statement was painfully ambiguous; she had bare feet on the jetty, was in shock, and hadn't eaten anything in a while – it could easily have been an accident. But then, she had lost everything and her general refusal to look after herself properly had always hinted to him of something darker below the surface, perhaps something which he himself had unknowingly fostered by supressing her childhood memories.

Either way he had heard enough. While she finished her soup he grabbed a bag and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He stared around the room for a moment before going through the cabinets and confiscating any medications, and removing a nail file he found in a small vanity case. Then he picked up her wet clothes from the floor. She shouldn't have to see them and be reminded of what had happened.

When he exited the bathroom she appeared to be asleep, her thick lashes closed against her cheek. He stood and watched her for a moment, mesmerised by her breathing, watching the rise and fall of the covers and the tumble of her dark curls against the pillow.

When he left her room he closed the door behind him, and paused to consider before turning the key in the lock and putting it in his breast pocket. He held his hand there for a second, drawing comfort from the thought that he knew exactly where she was and that she wouldn't leave. When she was strong enough to hate him for it, she would. It was a price he was willing to pay to keep her from harm.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N After Red locks her in, Lizzie begins to have serious doubts about his motives.** **She had absconded with him without thinking, without question, never discerning his true motives in wanting to take down the Cabal, and never asking what his plans were for her. More angst and some violence - a darker version of Red in this chapter - you've been warned. Disclaimed as ever. Reviews make my day :-)**

When he entered her room the next morning with a breakfast tray she was already awake and dressed, sitting with her legs tucked under her on the window seat overlooking the lake. She turned to look at him as he placed the tray on the dresser.

"Did you lock me in here last night?"

He gestured at the tray. "Fresh coffee, croissants, eggs, and some of those delightful strawberries that seem to be thriving in the greenhouse. How are you feeling this morning?"

She continued to watch him intently, like a cornered cat assessing its escape routes. "You haven't answered my question" she said.

He turned to look at her square on. "Yes, I locked you in. Now you answer my question. How are you feeling?"

"Why did you do it?"

"I think you know why, Elizabeth" he said quietly. "Now please tell me how you are – any pain or trouble breathing?"

"Breathing is fine. My chest hurts a little." She hadn't taken her eyes off him.

"That's to be expected. I'll bring you something for the pain after you've gotten some food inside you." He walked towards the door and turned back as she spoke.

"Are you going to lock me in again?"

He tilted his head to the side and looked at her but didn't respond.

She held his gaze for a moment before turning back to look out of the window.

She waited until she heard the key turn in the lock and his footsteps on the stairs before moving over to the breakfast tray. She wanted to leave it, to show him he couldn't control her, but she was ravenous. She needed to get her strength back – she had a feeling she would need it for what was coming. Her breathing was ok, but the truth was she was in terrible pain – he'd almost definitely cracked a rib performing CPR and it hurt like a son of a bitch.

The breakfast was admittedly delicious. He had clearly taken care over it, but that wasn't nearly enough to quell the suspicion that had been building in her since she had tried to go see him the night before and found the door locked. She'd wanted to tell him she hadn't gone out to the lake with the intention of hurting herself – she'd just been so scared, so shocked. She'd just needed to feel something different for a second. She hadn't known the water would be so cold. She just wasn't thinking. She'd wanted to ask him what the plan was to rescue Cooper. She'd wanted to tell him she was afraid, and that she loved him. She wanted to tell him so many things.

But since that moment in the dark when she realised he had locked her in her mind had sprung into overdrive. At first she had felt confused; maybe the door was stuck, or perhaps she was more badly injured than she'd thought. Soon enough she realised the truth of what he had done; he had locked her in and her feelings changed quickly from confusion to frustration, followed by a growing sense of foreboding.

Her uneasiness was deepened considerably by their exchange in the morning. His behavior had been strange - distant and formal, checking up on her and asking questions like a doctor might to his patient. When she'd asked about why he was keeping her there he'd given one of his classic non-answers that reminded her of the old Reddington, the one she hadn't trusted back in the days when her world still made sense.

He returned an hour later with two pills and a glass of water which he handed to her. As she reached up to take the glass she couldn't help a small whimper escaping her lips as a bolt of pain shot across her chest when she moved. He frowned as she gulped down the pills.

"As I suspected. You're in rather a lot more pain than you let on, aren't you?"

She gave a small shrug.

"You've likely sustained a fractured rib. It will heal on its own - the medication will help with the pain but you should get plenty of rest." His tone was alarmingly dispassionate, as though she were a stranger.

She nodded slowly. "Ok. And after that I'll come downstairs with you?"

She saw his face twitch fractionally. "You need to recover and I have some business to take care of today."

"You're leaving?"

"No, but I have several calls to make."

"What calls?"

She could detect him getting annoyed, although his tone remained neutral. "Elizabeth…rest now."

~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~

This pattern continued for the next week; he kept her locked in her bedroom, bringing her meals and pain medication and watching while she took the pills. Aside from the few minutes she had with him when he brought her food, he left her completely alone with nothing to do but read or sleep. Each time he came into her room she tried asking him about Cooper and what his plans were regarding the Cabal, but he remained evasive and distant, telling her it was being taken care of. She had thought that if he was angry about what happened at the lake he would soon become less distant with her, but if anything his behaviour towards her had grown colder.

He seemed to spend as little time as possible with her, and when he did see her it was perfunctory, his expression unreadable as he asked her questions about her health. She soon learned that it didn't matter whether she claimed the pain in her chest had lessened, he still insisted she continue the pain medication. The pills were strong – too strong for someone of her small size. They practically eliminated her pain, but made her groggy; most of the time she felt swathed in a blanket of lethargy which left her unable to think straight. After the fifth day she stopped taking them, securing them under her tongue and hiding them in a drawer after he left.

Although the pain returned, it was less severe, and certainly preferable to the haze in which she was living while she was medicated. She felt her mind sharpening and she began to turn everything over in her head. It was then that the grim reality of her situation really began to sink in, a feeling of creeping horror which only became more profound the more she thought about him. Much as on some level she had felt safe and secure in their house on the lake, she was now starting to feel like his prisoner. How strange it was that a simple turn of a key, or a question evaded could turn him from protector to jailor.

Here was a man who had turned her life upside down. A dangerous criminal who killed to get what he wanted, manipulated her and kept monumental secrets from her regarding her own life. She had absconded with him without thinking, without question, never discerning his true motives in wanting to take down the Cabal, and never asking what his plans were for her.

Worse than that, she had fallen in love with him. Even as she began to grow fearful of his motives, she was haunted by the memory of his touch – he had elicited the greatest pleasure from her that she had ever experienced. She thought of the way he had held her, tasted her, setting his own pace and deliberately manipulating her body into giving him the responses he wanted until he chose to allow her release, increasing the pressure of his fingers and tongue the perfect amount to send her spiralling over the edge.

She blushed when she thought of it, this time remembering not just the exquisite feel of his hands and tongue on her, but also his reluctance to touch her, his restraint, and then his emphatic insistence that their sexual relationship had to stop. She was a profiler, trained to look for patterns and to read people, and what she saw in him troubled her greatly. It was guilt, and it didn't make sense given that she now knew it had been she who had killed her father and possibly even he who saved her that night. No. It didn't make sense, unless he felt guilty about something he was _going to do_. He'd never told her what he was doing to help Cooper. In the end she always came back to this: _she'd never asked him what his plans were for her._

By the end of the week she had formulated an escape plan. She had to get out of there, away from Reddington, get to Ressler and clear Cooper's name once and for all. She got up early and packed a bag, which she hid under the bed. Once she was done, she took her position on the floor, clutching her chest, and waited for Red to come in with breakfast. As she'd predicted, as soon as he saw her he moved swiftly to her side.

"Lizzie, what happened, what's wrong?" His achingly deep voice was urgent, but still calm. So very Red, she thought.

"My chest" she gasped "it hurts so much"

"Ok, take a deep breath for me… and again. Good. What kind of pain is it? Like before or sharper?"

"I'm ok, I can breathe, it just hurts more than usual today."

He nodded and reached for the pain meds he'd brought in.

"No, please Red, do you have something stronger? Please?" Her eyes were wide and swimming with tears. A truly Oscar worthy performance, she thought to herself.

"Of course, I'll be back in a minute." He looked genuinely concerned and just for a second she felt guilty.

Just as she had hoped, he left the room leaving the door open. Seizing her moment, she grabbed the bag from under the bed, crept to the door and then down the stairs, grabbing keys from the box in the hall. Hands shaking, she tried the keys in the lock of the front door, and pictured herself driving away in the jeep they had stowed in the garage of the property.

As she undid the lock, her heart thumping, she actually thought that she was going to make it. She hadn't heard him come downstairs behind her, and yelped with surprise and fear as she felt his strong arms wrap around her.

"It seems you've made a _remarkable_ recovery" he growled in her ear. There was something in his tone that chilled her and she tried to twist out of his grasp. His grip tightened and he tutted at her. "Would you like to tell me what you think you're doing?" She could feel his breath on her ear as he removed the keys from her hand.

"I have to go back" she said breathlessly. "I can't do this – I can't stay here while people are dying and Cooper is rotting in prison because of me, he's just got his life back and I took it away from him. You know if there's a chance I can clear his name then I have to do it!"

When he didn't let go she tried again to wriggle free but his arms tightened again across her chest causing her to cry out in pain.

"Elizabeth stop struggling, you're only hurting yourself." His tone was flat. Resigned.

"Let me go!"

"I can't do that. You're not thinking clearly. You almost died last week. You are weak and in pain and you need to stop and calm down –if you go back now you will be in terrible danger and it won't help Harold."

"Ressler will - "

Red scoffed, cutting her off. "You think Captain America will help you now?"

"He helped me escape" she said defiantly.

"That was before you took it upon yourself to kill the Attorney General of the United States" Red practically hissed in her ear, shocking her into stillness for a moment. She didn't understand him – how could he be so cold? She'd told him why she'd done it – for him. Because she loved him.

Still in his iron grasp she began to cry, great shuddering sobs that she couldn't control despite being desperate to remain strong. "Red, please understand I have to go. It's the only way I can live with myself. Please – you're frightening me."

Finally he relaxed his grip on her, positioning himself carefully between her and the door, before locking it again and turning to face her.

He looked pained, and frustrated. "Elizabeth use your head. This is exactly what they want you to do – they arrested Cooper to draw you out. You're playing _right_ into their hands."

"Red-"

"You will not be leaving" he snapped. "Accept that."

Everything about him seemed to have changed; his tone was clipped, his demeanor cold…he had _hurt_ her. Her fears were becoming horribly real and she could feel the panic building insider her. She was his prisoner. "What the hell is going on here? Answer me! You manipulative fucking bastard – I can't believe I trusted you!" She was shaking and she felt fresh tears slip down her cheeks. "You can't stop me – this is my decision and I will find a way to get out of here!"

His expression had darkened as she had begun to yell, and before she had finished he had grabbed the med kit from where he had tossed it on the side. She watched as he removed a small, pre-filled syringe from a case at the back, her heart racing.

"What are you doing?"

"It's something to calm you down" he said quietly.

"I'm fine!"

"Oh yes of course you're fine" his voice dripping with sarcasm. "After your performance last week I don't know if you're going to turn yourself over to the Cabal or just kill yourself and save them the trouble."

She gasped, breathing hard for a second while she processed what he had said.

"Red I didn't…just stop a minute!"

He stepped towards her and she tensed, ready to defend herself. "Lizzie please don't make this more difficult than it has to be."

"You expect me to make this easy for you?!" She took a step backwards. "Please don't do this, Red _please"_.

She looked into his eyes imploringly, but they seemed empty, set with singular purpose. She lashed out in an attempt to knock the syringe out of his hand, but he caught her arm with ease, pinning it behind her back before pulling her flush against his body. A second later she felt a sharp sting in her neck and her limbs felt so heavy, her vision blurring. After that there was nothing but darkness and his smell, which she found oddly comforting as he lowered her gently to the floor.

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N Red and Lizzie try to work out their trust issues...** **I've been having some interesting discussions with readers about Red's behavior in the last chapter - we see a bit more of his vulnerabilities in this chapter, but bear in mind this is not a 'nice' fic - whilst Red is capable of extraordinary love, he is also damaged and obsessive, and I will be exploring that too.**

 **This chapter is so NSFW I'm not kidding, total angst and smut. As ever, I don't profit from their emotional pain.**

When she woke she was lying on her bed, the afternoon sun pouring in through the windows. As her eyes adjusted she stiffened when she realised that he was sitting on a chair in the corner of the room.

"Hello Lizzie."

She scrambled into a sitting position, trying to make out his features through the haze of sleep and sunlight. He looked tired and dishevelled by his standards, brow furrowed and sleeves rolled up. She glanced quickly towards the door.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you" he said quietly. "Not unless you want a repeat of our earlier unpleasant business, which I certainly don't." He sounded exhausted.

She licked her lips and looked back at him.

"You didn't have to _drug_ me."

His jaw tightened. "You're right. You were in such a sorry state I could easily have just carried you back up here kicking and screaming, but aside from that being a _singularly_ distasteful scenario, I didn't want to risk exacerbating your injuries."

She felt anger flare inside her. "So this is your solution - chemically restrain me? Why do you even have that stuff here? God you're a sinister guy, has anyone ever told you that?"

"I've never claimed to be one of the good guys" he said, his voice tight. "I do what needs to be done, however unpleasant."

She smiled humourlessly and nodded. "So this is it, huh? This _pretence_ of something between us is over."

He frowned and stood up, walking towards her. Instinctively she flinched and drew her knees up closer to her chest.

He stopped his approach and looked genuinely hurt at her reaction. He shook his head. "What's gotten into you?"

She looked at his face, handsome features marred by worry lines, his expression etched with concern, and for a moment she felt a pang of guilt. But that didn't change the reality of the situation. She had been an idiot to blindly let him take her away from DC, and he was now keeping her drugged and imprisoned. She couldn't lose sight of that.

"I'm afraid."

"Of me." It didn't sound like a question. She watched as his frown deepened.

"You can't be surprised - you've kept me locked in here like a prisoner for a week! And maybe that's what I've been the whole time. I just came with you blindly, you've never said how long we're going to be here, or what will happen to me."

"You haven't asked me." His tone had turned cold.

"Maybe I was afraid to" She whispered. "I thought I was safe here with you but I'm not, am I?" He fixed her with a long stare but didn't answer her.

She sighed and covered her face with her hands. "God how could I have been so stupid. The Blacklist was about clearing the way for you. When you take down the Cabal that will leave a vacuum in the global power stakes and who better to step in than Raymond Reddington? You already have connections all over the world." She looked back at him. "Is that why you didn't want me to go back? I would have ruined your plan?

As she spoke she could see his face pale; he wore an expression she had never seen on him before. His eyes glittered dangerously.

When he didn't answer she felt tears prick her eyes, terror building inside her. "You owe me an honest answer. Have you been using me this whole time to take down the Cabal so that you can replace them?" Her voice cracked. "Is that why you stopped this thing between us? Because you can't bring yourself to sleep with someone you know you're eventually going to kill?"

Even as the words left her lips she regretted saying them. His mouth dropped open slightly and he looked like she'd slapped him in the face.

He hadn't taken his eyes off her as she spoke, but now he blinked and dropped his head for a moment. When he finally responded his tone was so low it was barely audible.

"If I was going to do that, why would I have taken such pains to keep you alive?"

"I don't know! I don't understand any of it!" She sighed, closing her eyes. "I love you but I don't know if I'll ever be able to trust you." She looked up at him through a shimmer of unshed tears.

"Never trust a criminal, Lizzie" he said hollowly. "And certainly never, _ever_ fall in love with one."

He sounded so hurt and so _bitter,_ she couldn't bear it. He swallowed before turning and walking towards the door.

She felt panic begin to rise within her. He'd said nothing to suggest that her fears were unjustified, but the betrayal and devastation in his eyes… she'd never seen anyone look so destroyed. She sprang off the bed and ran after him, grabbing his arm as he reached for the handle and placing herself between him and the door. "Is that the best you've got? Tell me the truth!"

She trembled as she looked at him – his face was a mask of hurt and fury. It was terrifying, and when he spoke it was no less frightening. He didn't even raise his voice, but that was somehow worse – the indecipherable emotion that simmered behind his low tones felt more threatening than if he had lost his temper.

"You've said _quite_ enough Elizabeth. Now step aside."

She was shaking now, but stayed right where she was. "No. Not until you answer me. A real answer. Because right now you are frightening the hell out of me!"

She saw a burst of anger flash across his face. "Did it ever occur to you that _I_ might be frightened? For you? That you put the fear of God into me last week? You almost _died_! And that stunt you pulled this morning, _oh Lizzie…_ it was ill-conceived and reckless, not to mention deceitful. To be frank, if sedating you and locking you up is the only way to protect you from yourself then that is _exactly_ what I will do, and you can hate me for it, but know this – you can't _possibly_ fathom how far I am willing to go to keep you safe."

Her eyes widened as she listened to him, her heart thumping as she realised there were now mere inches between their faces as he spoke, his voice was so deep and close that it seemed to resonate throughout her entire body. "If I've been unwilling to share developments with you this week it's because I haven't wanted to burden you during your recovery." He shook his head. "To think that you would hurt yourself..."

"I didn't!" she gasped "that's what I've been trying to tell you – I didn't go in the water to hurt myself. It was just all so much…I just needed to escape what I was feeling for a second. I didn't think it would be so dangerous." She shook her head. "I know it was stupid-"

She didn't continue because at that moment he gathered her into his arms in a full, gentle embrace, stroking her hair and kissing the top of her head again and again. He didn't say anything but she could feel the relief emanating from him, and rested her head on his shoulder, enjoying his proximity and the feel of his vest against her cheek.

His warmth spread through her as he held her, a delicious feeling of heat and closeness that she realised she had been utterly bereft without. After a moment she lifted her head to look at him. His eyes were as dark as she had ever seen them, a penetrating forest green gaze that sent waves of desire pooling in her abdomen despite the wretchedness of the situation. She felt his breathing quicken and parted her lips slightly. He'd been so angry before that she was afraid to kiss him, but she _needed it_ , she needed him to show her he still cared for her, to prove he wasn't the monster she feared he was.

She leaned into him as much as she dared, until she heard her name roll off his tongue in those deep, honey tones " _Lizzie_ ", his lips brushing against her mouth as he spoke. She closed her eyes, and felt one of his hands slide into her hair, holding the back of her head, the other round her waist, pulling her against him as he slowly pressed his lips to hers.

His kiss was like his voice – it burned, resonating deep inside, utterly intoxicating her until there was nothing left in the world but his soft mouth brushing against hers, and then his tongue gliding across her bottom lip, coaxing her, begging for entry. Her legs began to shake a little and he stepped forwards a fraction, pinning her gently against the door. She gasped and he slid his tongue into her mouth, tasting her, his hands grasping her hair as if he couldn't bear to let her go.

The kiss was so achingly sweet, so passionate, but above all deeply loving, as though he had waited for her not just for the last few weeks, but for years. Of everything that had happened between them, she thought dimly, if only he had kissed her it would have told her everything she needed to know. She was clutching at him now, pulling him closer. She needed him not to stop, to hold her tighter, to touch her. As she drew him against her she felt him hard and thick through his suit, pressed into her hip. She moaned at the contact, and when he pulled back she didn't register it, instead bringing her hands up to undo the buttons of his shirt.

"Lizzie-"

When she didn't stop he took her hands gently, pulling back. "Lizzie, stop sweetheart." He sounded strained.

"It's alright" she said breathlessly "you won't hurt me. I may have exaggerated how much pain I was in this morning…"

She saw creases appear around his eyes as he smiled and cocked his head to the side. He paused and ran his thumb lightly over her mouth, her lips red and swollen from their kiss. "Yes…you're quite the consummate little actress aren't you?"

She smiled at him sheepishly and then reached again for his shirt. He caught her wrist firmly, his smile gone. "I'm serious Lizzie."

She stepped back then and looked at the floor, suddenly embarrassed by her own lack of control, that her desire was so obvious to him; Raymond Reddington before her in his smart vest and dress shirt and then her, in jeans, face flushed, hair mussed up and an aching slickness between her legs she felt sure he knew was there.

He reached out and tilted her chin up gently until she met his eye, giving her a pained smile. "Lizzie please understand. I cannot allow my feelings for you to jeopardise you any more than they already have." He paused, scanning her face intently, his lip trembling slightly. "I have done _terrible_ things to prevent our connection from becoming known. And, to my immense shame, I have hurt you. I will not selfishly pursue an intimate relationship with you now to satisfy my own desires."

Her heart thundered in her chest as he spoke, her head clouded by a dizzying mix of her arousal, hearing him tell her that he wanted her, and the things he had done for her.

"I've killed for you too, Red" she whispered finally.

He shook his head, his voice broken. "I never wanted that for you. I never anticipated that you would develop feelings for me. Had I known, I would have-"

"You would have what?" she cut him off. "Hired me another husband? Taken my memories of you away? Or just behaved like an evil bastard until you alienated me completely? You've been making decisions for me my entire life. Let me make this choice myself." She paused as he stared at her in shock, and gathered her strength. " _Let me have this choice, Red_."

After that she led him to the bed, swallowing his warnings with kisses, and then silencing him completely by removing her clothing, baring herself to him completely before kneeling between his legs and studiously undoing his vest and shirt while her breasts brushed tantalizingly against his face. He allowed her to undress him, and then rolled her carefully her onto her back with a growl, worshipping her body with kisses and feather-light touches. She felt so warm and cared for and desired that reality almost slipped away completely in a haze of lust, but then, when she felt him soothe the needle puncture mark on her neck with his tongue, and when he parted her legs with his knee she felt a chill of doubt run through her.

He looked down at her, concerned. "Sweetheart what's wrong? We can stop anytime-"

"No, I don't want to stop. It's just…"

"What is it Lizzie? Tell me what you need."

She looked up at him, broad shoulders hovering above her, supporting himself on his muscular arms that had carried her unconscious form to this bed only hours ago. She slipped out from under him and pushed him back on the bed, straddling him.

He nodded. "I understand. You need control. It's yours, Lizzie."

He grasped her hips while she positioned herself and slid onto him, adjusting to his considerable size as he slowly filled her. He groaned as she eased down, allowing her to set the pace, holding her waist to steady her and taking her pert nipples in his mouth as she arched her body. She rocked gently on top of him, sliding languidly up and down his cock in a way that made him ache helplessly and desperately for release, raw emotion and desire long suppressed now swelling like a fist inside him.

When she began to speed up he could tell she was close, but her teeth had captured her bottom lip as if she was afraid to let go. He reached up and cupped her cheek, his voice hoarse and brow creased with the effort of containing himself for her. "You wanted control Lizzie. Take it. Own it."

He watched as she arched up over him, rolling her hips on his shaft and giving him a breath-taking view of her body until she finally climaxed astride him, her head falling back. After that he utterly lost the equilibrium he had fought to maintain. Slipping his arm around her waist, he spun her deftly down onto the bed, groaning her name as he thrust into her hard in great bursts of ecstasy before collapsing beside her and pulling her tightly into his arms.

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N Sorry for the delay my lovelies - been away!** **Back now with chapter 9.** **Liz begins to put her doubts about Red to rest, but then her fears are confirmed. A** **blend of angst, smut and fluff, not necessarily in that order. They will need the fluff for what comes next in subsequent chapters of this story. This is going to get DARK. As ever not mine, but I do love them so. Also here's hoping you can all read this as the site appears to be bugging out.**

As she lay there in his arms she closed her eyes, limbs still tingling and warmed by his embrace and the afternoon sun. Before long she slipped into a hazy sleep, lethargic bliss that was eerily punctuated with dreams so real she couldn't find the line between waking life and slumber.

 _She's there in the bed with him, now in warm and comforting darkness. Their limbs are intertwined, taking luxurious pleasure from one another. Then she's somewhere else, standing naked in the dark. She can feel a man close to her; she turns towards him but she can't see him, he's always behind her, in the shadows, just out of reach. She laughs at first but it quickly turns to frustration - if she can only get closer to him…The darkness overtakes, cloying at her senses, suffocating her. The man's arm slips around her neck from behind, caressing at first, brushing over her collar bones, then grasping her throat, slowly tightening and squeezing and she can't move, she can't breathe, she's going to die and she can't see but she knows it's him – she can smell him, sense him all around her, it's him, Red, Red…_

She woke with a start, her head resting on his chest and his arms still wrapped tightly around her. His hand went to her hair, gently stroking and soothing as she looked up at him.

"Bad dream, sweetheart?"

She swallowed. "No, I'm fine Red. Didn't you sleep?"

He paused for a moment. He knew she had lied to him, but decided not to press her for the moment. He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "And miss the unearthly pleasure of holding you, warm in my arms between these sheets? Never."

She smiled at him sleepily and his expression turned serious for a moment.

"Lizzie have dinner with me tonight."

Relief flooded over her as she nodded. "I'd like that". Although this wasn't the first time they'd had an intimate encounter, their relationship had now changed fundamentally, and in some ways, she thought, it was more uncertain than it had ever been. They needed to talk properly; she needed to find a way to turn this into a partnership and assuage the doubts that lingered in her subconscious. Most of all, she needed to get out of that room.

He was reluctant to release her from his arms. They needed to shower and he wanted to prepare something special for the evening, but he couldn't shake the feeling that this would be the only time he would ever hold her like this. The delicious scent of her hair, the warmth of her smooth skin – he wanted to savour every second and commit it to memory before she inevitably left him.

She was already having nightmares about him – she didn't know it but she had cried his name in terror her sleep. She would soon realise the monster he was and be disgusted with herself for allowing him to touch her. If not that, then her dazzling combination of courage and foolhardiness would lead her to try another stunt as she had that morning, although he would do everything in his power to prevent that from happening.

Even if she stayed with him, she would eventually find out the truth about his plans regarding the cabal. She was incredibly intuitive; some of her accusations earlier that day had landed pretty close to the mark, enough to make him feel vulnerable. She would never understand. She would hate him and he cringed inwardly at the thought of how she would look at him when she discovered the truth.

If not any of those things, it could even be that he would find it in himself to be a better man, to do the right thing and let her go himself. The thought made him hold her tighter for a moment, before kissing her forehead and announcing that he was going to wash up and prepare dinner.

When she came downstairs later it was to glorious smells coming from the kitchen and the heart-warming sight of Red in an immaculate dove-grey suit and vest covered by an apron. He turned to her with a broad smile as she entered.

"Lizzie you look enchanting!"

She regarded his suit for a moment and then looked down at her black pants and light blue blouse. "I feel a little underdressed."

"Nonsense." He approached her and handed her a glass of wine. "True beauty requires no enhancement." He looked so sincere all of a sudden that she couldn't help laughing, before taking a sip of her wine. It tasted like cherries, wood smoke and velvet. She looked about the kitchen and then turned back to him.

"Shall I lay the table?"

"We're not eating in here sweetheart."

Her stomach clenched for a second. Surely he couldn't mean to serve dinner in her room as he had the past week?

He must have observed her panicked reaction as his voice had softened when he spoke again. "Conservatory, Lizzie. Go and see."

She nodded and walked through the kitchen to the old wood and glass conservatory and gasped when she saw the scene before her. There was now a table in there, laid as it would be in a restaurant, but the thing that took her breath away was the flowers, flowers and light. So much light. There were candles and lanterns lining the room, their light reflected in the glass panes and illuminating bunches of lilac flowers which made the room smell divine.

He was behind her then, his arm slipping gently about her waist. "Dinner in twenty minutes, sweetheart. Slow cooked lamb shank with mushroom fricassée persillade."

"I'm not sure what you just said but it sounds incredible. All of this is incredible. Thank you." She turned and kissed him full on the mouth, savouring the taste of him and the wine. He reciprocated with a grunt of pleasure which, she decided with a smile, was rather ungentlemanly.

She took another sip of wine. "This is heavenly. To be honest I was worried for a second that we'd be eating our romantic meal locked in my room."

She watched his eye twitch fractionally, and waited for him to respond.

"I don't think that will be necessary now, do you?" he said carefully.

"I never thought it was necessary" she shot back.

He looked at her for a moment before placing his wine glass down on the table and bringing his hands up slowly to cup her face, sweeping a lock of hair behind her ear. "You told me you didn't know how you could trust me. Lizzie, trust goes both ways. I need to know you're not going to endanger yourself again. If you do… then all this is for nothing."

He didn't elaborate, but his tone had an almost desperate, pleading quality to it and she got the impression that by 'all of this' he meant more than the fulcrum and their flight from DC. She closed her eyes for a moment, gathering strength, and then looked at him, the brilliant blue of her eyes all the more shocking to him for the momentary absence.

"Red… I need to ask you something."

He stiffened. Her questions had been easier to evade when she was hurling accusations at him hand over fist. He wouldn't lie to her, but please not yet, he couldn't lose her just yet.

"Yes, Lizzie?"

"Do you love me?"

He looked at her, stunned. It wasn't what he expected. It also seemed an absurd question until he realised that although he had been telling her he loved her in his own way for years, he had never said the words to her. He laughed gently, causing her to frown.

"Yes. I love you Lizzie. I have loved you more than anything, for such a long time sweetheart."

Her eyes widened. He was afraid he had said too much, yet he couldn't bear the thought that she would never know how much he truly loved her. The time would come when it would be very important that she remember it.

"I don't understand-"

"I know. But I hope you will someday. There are many kinds of love Lizzie, each all-consuming in their own way."

"But when did you…" she trailed off, uncertain as to how to ask the question.

"You're asking when I developed romantic feelings for you."

"Yes."

He chuckled. "It's difficult to say, although the time you stabbed me in the carotid with my own pen was certainly a defining moment."

"Red!"

He continued to laugh – "Oh Lizzie, so fierce - the passion there was _glorious_."

She shook her head. "I was devastated."

He stopped laughing and drew her to him. "I know sweetheart. I'm sorry."

They paused, both remembering painfully the reason why she had stabbed him – Tom, Tom the imposter who he had put in her life.

He looked down at her. "What about you Lizzie?" He seemed almost nervous.

"I think I'd have to say… seeing you chained in the box on my first day." Her mouth curved with just a hint of a teasing smile.

He looked genuinely shocked and it was her turn to laugh. "You were so calm - even though you were restrained it was like you were in control. I'm not naive, Red."

"Oh I'm quite aware of that, sweetheart." He didn't say anything more, but there was a fire in his eyes when he spoke which sent a thrill running down her spine.

The meal he'd prepared was sublime, but his mood over dinner in the miniature paradise he had created for them was a strange one. It seemed to her as though he was battling some internal conflict which he concealed competently with animated tales of his global travels. It felt so good to laugh after weeks of misery, but all the while there was _something_ she couldn't quite grasp… she longed for another glimpse of the man underneath the suave, jovial exterior.

After dinner he continued in the same vein until she could no longer stand it.

"I'm going to bed. Are you coming?" She looked down at him questioningly, one eyebrow cocked.

He appeared uncertain, working his jaw for a second. "Lizzie, are you asking whether I too am going to bed, or are you asking me to accompany you?"

He seemed so unsure, so hesitant, even after everything that had transpired, that it made her want to simultaneously laugh and weep for him. She loved him. Her heart ached for him.

When she didn't answer immediately he began to speak again. "I wouldn't want to presume-"

"Red, I'm asking you to come to bed with me. In fact, I'm asking you to come upstairs so that I can give you something" she lowered her voice seductively. "You've done so much for me, made me feel incredible. I'm looking forward to repaying the favour." She held out her hand to him.

He rose from his seat and took her hand, although his expression was serious. "Lizzie, you don't owe me anything."

She laughed and rolled her eyes at him, the wine boosting her confidence. "Jeez, you need to relax. Let me help you with that."

He watched in awe as she led him purposefully to her room. He was grateful that she had chosen her room and not his – he couldn't have her in that bed, not after he had hurt her there so badly. He could barely bring himself to sleep there himself after that night. Had she been downstairs over the last week she would have noticed that he had taken to staying up most of the night with a lonely scotch his only companion, often falling into a wretched sleep in an armchair rather than facing his bed, a cold reminder of his violent nature.

He shook that thought from his head as she led him not to her bed as he had expected, but to the chair in the corner of the room. He stood uncertainly as she circled him, brushing her lips against his neck before playfully nipping his bottom lip. He brought his hands up to embrace her but she caught them and placed them at his sides, smiling and shaking her head. He groaned as she cupped him through his pants, before undoing his belt and pulling them down along with his boxers, leaving him otherwise fully dressed. She gave him a Cheshire cat smile before pushing him down to sit on the chair and kneeling between his legs.

He leaned forward then and caught her chin, his voice strained. "Lizzie, I don't expect you to-"

"I know. But I've been thinking about doing this for a long time. You wouldn't deny me, would you?" she said softly. Her blue eyes seem to shimmer with excitement, her face rosy from wine and exhilaration.

He swallowed and sat back in the chair. "I'd deny you nothing that's in my power to give."

He felt rather than saw her smile because her hot little mouth was already on him and everything seemed to fall away into a haze of pleasure, pleasure he didn't deserve, but given to him freely, even wantonly.

He came back to his senses all too soon when he felt a familiar pull inside, and lent down urgently to tilt her head up. He was seconds from losing it when his cock slid from between her lips. When she looked up his face was a mask of concentration that left her in no doubt that she had been able to please him, despite the many more experienced women she suspected he had been with. When he spoke his voice lacked his usual composure and she was secretly delighted that she had been able to do that to him, to make him beg.

" _Oh God_ …please Lizzie, the bed. Now. Let me touch you sweetheart."

After that he made love to her in the way he had imagined. He took his time with her, undressing her slowly, worshipping every new bit of skin revealed. He discovered just how to touch her to make her bite her lip, how to make her smile with pleasure and then gasp, and finally, how to make her feel so much she looked like she might cry – almost, but not quite.

As he used his new knowledge of her to bring her to a fourth orgasm he finally allowed himself to be taken with her, and she thought dimly that he too almost appeared to be about to weep with happiness. Afterwards, he pulled her limp body to him and held her, overjoyed by the feel of her in his arms once again. Barely conscious, she fell asleep almost immediately. There were no nightmares this time, only pure contentment and the soaring happiness of being held by him, the man she loved, and who loved her.

She woke in the night, her head fuzzy and mouth dry. He was sound asleep with one arm resting protectively over her. She slipped carefully from his grasp and threw on a robe before heading out of the room to fetch a glass of water. As she reached the top of the stairs she could just make out the sound of the satellite phone ringing from Red's room. She hesitated only a moment before entering and picking up the phone herself.

"Hello?"

"Liz? Is that you?"

" _Ressler_? How did you-"

"Liz, don't hang up. I know you're with Reddington and you have to get away, you can't trust him Liz - you're in danger. I've found something you need to know-"

Her heart already pounding in her ears, she didn't hear any more because at that moment the phone was suddenly yanked from her hand. She whirled round in time to see Red end the call, his face a mask of fury.

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N Liz has made a serious mistake and suffers the consequences. Will Red be able to help her this time? As ever, not mine. I love reviews – they keep me going!**

He was already dressed, if hastily, and she wondered how long he could have been there, if he knew what Ressler had said. She braced herself, expecting him to shout, but instead he seemed to focus his anger on tearing the battery from the phone. When he spoke he sounded clipped and business-like.

"Our friends at the FBI."

She licked her lips. Her mouth was so dry. "Ressler."

"Have you spoken with him before tonight? While we've been here?"

Still calm and detached. How could he ask her that? She frowned but he wasn't looking at her. He tossed the dismantled phone on the bed and walked to the drawers, removing his Glock and shoving in a clip.

"Of course I haven't! I would have told you! What are you doing?"

He nodded silently, tucking the weapon behind him into his waistband before approaching her. He rolled his tongue for a moment before meeting her eye. "Elizabeth, we need to go. It's no longer safe here. There's an emergency drop point about eighty miles east of here, we can pick up the travel documents we'll need and go from there."

As he spoke she began to feel sick to her stomach. What had she done?

"I'm so sorry" she whispered. "I don't know what I was thinking."

He sighed. "I know _exactly_ what you were thinking, Lizzie – you saw an opportunity to avail yourself of information and you couldn't resist it, whatever the consequences. That intractable inquisitiveness of yours is going to get you into serious trouble if it hasn't already." He paused, shaking his head.

Liz's cheeks were flaming with a combination of anger and shame. He was right; she was so eager to see if Dembe or Mr Kaplan would shed some light on Red's activities that she hadn't checked the call's provenance. When she realised it was Ressler, she should have hung up immediately, but she didn't. She hated having been caught, she hated that she'd make a mistake of this magnitude, and yet she was now more convinced than ever that he was hiding something big from her. What did Ressler know that she didn't? Her head throbbed with the remnants of wine and sleep. She opened her mouth to respond but he placed his hand gently on her arm, silencing her.

"Go and pack your things. There's a weapon for you in the kit in the hall."

"Now?"

"Right now. We're leaving in fifteen minutes."

She paled as the seriousness of the situation sank in, and stood silently for a second before walking to the door. As she grasped the handle she paused, biting back tears as she whispered "I'm sorry" before leaving to pack.

~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~

Sixteen minutes later he locked the front door of the lake house for the last time. She watched as he turned and walked towards the garage, with nothing but a small suitcase in hand. He didn't look back. He made it look easy, she thought; they were leaving a place they'd lived together, where they'd made love for the first time. She paused, her eye drifting down the path to the lake, glittering as the moonlight caught the surface.

"Elizabeth."

"I'm coming." She wished she could make out his expression in the dark.

They drove in silence for a while, his eyes fixed on the road and her staring numbly out of the window. She snuck a look at him. This was only the second time she had ever seen him drive and the first time she had been too shell-shocked to take it in. His expression remained inscrutable as he navigated the twisty roads of the western province, his hands gripping the steering wheel. He looked so tired. She'd ruined everything, and he hadn't yelled at her, or even told her he was disappointed.

"You're angry with me" she said finally.

She watched the corner of his mouth twitch.

"No."

"How can you not be?"

His face was illuminated for a moment by the headlights of a passing car; he looked pained, his expression reminding her of the moment she'd told him she remembered shooting her father before he vanished back into shadows.

"When I took you away from DC I did so because I had failed to protect you from your past, and the future it created for you. It seems I am continuing to fail. I assure you the anger I feel is for myself alone." He shook his head and added emphatically "I _never_ wanted this for you."

His voice seemed to catch in his throat at those last words, and he coughed hard for a moment. She stared at him in silence. Whatever Ressler thought he knew about Red, she knew without a shadow of a doubt that he loved her. Her stomach churned with grief on his behalf. She reached out and placed a reassuring hand tentatively on his thigh. He said nothing further for the duration of their journey, only clearing his throat occasionally, but she thought she saw some of the tension leave his face. She would have to be content with that.

The drop point turned out to be a draughty old church, which was made all the more imposing in the darkness of the early morning. They entered quietly through a side door. It was dark and still inside but Red paused after a few paces, suddenly tense, and drew his weapon. Liz followed suit; she looked around for the threat but could hear and see nothing, only rows of hulking pews and the font, looming in front of them like a beast ready to spring.

"Show yourself." Red's voice echoed through the church.

There was nothing for a moment, and Liz thought that perhaps tiredness and experience had made him paranoid. But then sure enough, a figure emerged from the vestibule, gun drawn. It was Ressler.

She couldn't help a gasp escaping as she saw him. She raised her weapon and inched away from Red, flanking round Ressler to ensure their tactical advantage. He couldn't shoot them both at once.

Ressler watched her move out of the corner of his eye but kept his gun trained on Reddington. "Liz, I'm here alone. Just hear me out."

"Hand me your weapon, then we'll talk" she said, eyeing him carefully.

"Lizzie there's no time for this." Red's voice was like flint as it rumbled around the church.

"Hand me your weapon!"

"I can't do that, Liz." Ressler backed slowly around away from her. "I gave you a chance, remember? Now you do the same for me. Reddington's playing you. He planned the take down of critical government figures long before the virus. There's evidence he was working with Fitch. His people are already moving into key positions – not just Washington, Keen, he's got people in China, India, Ukraine – why do you think we were in the Ukraine? He didn't care about contaminated water. He was putting Denisov in play, setting up his own pipeline. Yabaari's successor is one of his too. This cabal you and Cooper talked about? He's in it up to his neck."

Liz's hand began to tremble as she listened to him. She put her other hand up to steady her weapon, her mind swirling. She glanced at Red. He seemed calm, his gun still aimed at Ressler. When he spoke his voice was dripping with menace.

"That's an interesting story Donald. You've come a long way – _alone-_ to tell it."

Keeping his gun on Red, Ressler shot a look at Liz. "You know I'm right, Liz. Whatever you have to face, if you come in with me we can deal with it. If you stay with him he is going to hurt you."

She shook her head, her voice trembling slightly. "You're wrong. He wouldn't do that."

Ressler's face clouded. "You're in love with him!" he spat accusingly. "My God Keen, what has he done to you?" He turned back to Red. "What have you done to her?

Red advanced on him slowly. "I can assure you the threat to her is very real, but it's not coming from me. Right now I'm the best chance she has."

Ressler looked at him warily down the barrel of his gun. "If there really is a threat as you say, then I can protect her. She'll be safe in my custody, you have my word."

Red laughed harshly. "While that's very gallant of you Donald, you can't protect her from your own people. There's a rot at the very heart of your government Agent Ressler, it's time you opened your eyes. Those mighty principles of truth and justice you swore to uphold have become the very apparatus of cruelty and injustice you purport to fight. You're a rare commodity Donald, a good man, but the world has moved on - the days of black and white, good and evil are over."

"What about you, Reddington?" he shot back. "If our government is as corrupt as you say, would the world be safer with you pulling the strings? Would she be safer? You may have her fooled but I've followed you for years, and I've followed your activities since the fulcrum was released. I know what you're doing, and I know about Katerina Rostova."

Liz tensed. Keeping her gun trained on Ressler, she turned her head slightly towards Red.

"What's he talking about? Tell me!"

"Forget it Lizzie, there's no time. We need to get out of here. Now."

Ressler smirked. "You haven't told her any of it, have you? Ask him, Liz. Ask him what happened to your mother."

Liz's stomach was in knots. She felt sick to her core. "My mother? What's she got to do with this? Red!"

"Lizzie please, we have to leave. You need to trust me now."

Red's voice was urgent. He sounded frightened and that terrified her in turn. She felt dizzy. She could also hear what Red could, multiple footsteps approaching, entering the building from the back. But if what Ressler had said was true, then her suspicions were correct all along – he had taken down the cabal in order to replace them with his own interests. What about her mother? He'd never told her what happened to her. She couldn't trust him.

"LIZZIE!"

Red was shouting now, and she didn't understand why until she felt a searing pain in her right shoulder. The force of the bullet's impact sent her to the ground, noises and colours and lights all floating around her. There was a torrent of gun fire from behind her, and then so much smoke, as snipers in gas masks poured into church, surrounding them. All she could see was boots on the ground and then nothing as everything faded to black. She closed her eyes.

Ressler was on alert the moment the snipers entered – they weren't FBI. "Federal agent, stand down! Stand down!" he yelled at them, raising his arm to his face to shield himself from the smoke. He watched as Reddington fired at the assailants like a demon, before eventually being surrounded and hit on the back of the head with the butt of one of their rifles.

Ressler ran to Liz's side, but was stopped by one of the snipers. "We'll take it from here Agent Ressler."

"What is this? On whose authority?!"

"Homeland Security. This woman is wanted for treason and terrorism, we've orders to bring her in."

Ressler looked around for Reddington but he was out cold. He turned back to the man in charge. "She needs a medic now!"

The sniper nodded and spoke into his radio. "The target is secure, repeat, the target is secure, requesting immediate medevac." Then he turned to Ressler. "Thank you for your assistance Agent Ressler, it will be noted in our report."

"Assistance? You followed me! This was a set-up!" The man remained impassive. "What about him?" Ressler nodded towards where Reddington lay on the ground.

"Our orders were to bring in the wanted fugitive Elizabeth Keen. We have no other targets."

Ressler's face paled. There was something very wrong about this, but he was far outmatched, even if he had decided to take on Homeland Security. He watched helplessly as an oxygen mask was placed over Liz's nose and mouth and she was loaded into an armoured ambulance. "At least tell me where she's being taken!"

"That's need to know, Agent. Thank you again for your assistance." And with that, they departed as briskly as they had arrived, leaving Ressler and Reddington alone in the church.

Ressler stood there reeling for a moment before marching to where Reddington lay on the ground, a sticky pool of blood gathering under his head. He thought about kicking him but remembered the effort he had taken to save his life in the box. He settled for slapping him hard in the face a couple of times.

"Reddington! Reddington, wake the hell up!"

Red opened his eyes, a sickening ache raging in the back of his skull. He sat up sharply, coughing hard. "Where is she? Lizzie-"

"Gone. They took her" Ressler spat. "What I want to know is why didn't they take you? What the hell is going on here?"

Red got to his feet, his features hardened. He looked at Ressler. "Perhaps now you'll finally accept the truth, Donald. Whatever agency took her did so on the orders of the Cabal."

"They'll have to give her a trial-"

Red's eyes flamed. "There will be _no_ trial, _no_ representation, _no_ chance. They'll bury her in the deepest hole they can find. She'll be tortured and eventually killed when she's no more use to them." He paused and ran a hand over his bloodied face. "She was hit. Tell me what happened."

"I told you - she's alive, they took her."

"Tell me again Donald, exactly what happened." His voice was almost a growl.

Ressler blinked at him for a moment, realization dawning on his face. "She was hit in the shoulder and conscious for maybe a minute after. They said they were Homeland Security. They radioed for a medevac, gave her oxygen and took her away in an armored ambulance. They wouldn't tell me where." He paused. "You really are in love with her."

He would never forget the look Reddington gave him then, his eyes flashing and face caked in his own blood.

"Donald, you have a choice. You can try and take me in yourself – right now you'd have a fighting chance. Stay a pawn for the evil and corrupt. Or you can accept the truth of what your government has become and help me" he breathed. "Help me get her back."

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N Red learns what has happened to Liz and fights his own demons. If Liz is going to survive, she has to be stronger than she thought possible. Angst. Angst. Whump. The whump may be upsetting – it's worth remembering that everything that happens here has been documented happening in US detention facilities, and has even been sanctioned. Thoroughly disclaimed, as ever.**

Red sat in a tattered armchair in a hastily procured safe house in Vermont. It was a dingy affair in a run-down neighbourhood – concrete blocks and stucco on the walls. It had the advantages of availability, location, and, crucially, it was well situated for security purposes. He didn't care. She would never see it.

He was waiting for a call. A call and a visit – he didn't know which would come first. Dembe would let him know soon enough. He was gladdened to see his friends again, Dembe and Mr Kaplan both. The circumstances that had reunited them, however, were unbearable.

Mr Kaplan entered the drab, darkened room and placed a cup of tea on the table beside him. He wished it was something stronger.

"I fucked up, Kate. Badly."

Kaplan looked at him sympathetically. "You were ambushed. You did everything you could."

He sighed. "I'm not talking about that."

"You slept with her" the older woman ventured without emotion.

He blinked for a moment. "Yes. But it's worse than that."

"Raymond." Red looked up and saw Dembe standing in the doorway. He could barely bring himself to look at the man. It was one thing confessing to Kate – she was almost a mother figure to him, and certainly had a dark past of her own. But Dembe was a good man who respected him, who always chose to see the good in him despite all evidence to the contrary. He couldn't bear him to know he hadn't been able to resist touching her, to know what he had done to her, and how badly he had failed to protect her.

"You have been intimate with her. Did you tell her everything Raymond?"

Red looked at him in silence, his guilt-filled eyes answering the question for him. He watched as Dembe's head fell slightly in disappointment and snapped at him - " _oh spare me your righteous indignation_."

Dembe nodded without meeting his eye and left the room. Red shook his head and ran a hand exasperatedly over his face. Mr Kaplan placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "All that matters now is getting her back. Focus on that. Agent Ressler and the task force are on their way. You will get her back."

Dembe returned shortly and held out a phone wordlessly. Red grimaced and put it to his ear.

"I'm listening."

"Mr Reddington." The director's typically dispassionate tones grated on the other end of the line. "I understand that a team from Homeland Security have made quite a coup – Elizabeth Keen, number five on the most wanted list - quite a coup indeed."

Red attempted to slip into character. Negotiating with very unpleasant people was his stock in trade, he had to let it work for him now.

"I'm sure it is, but unfortunately for them it'll be short-lived. Her capture by the security services is bad news for you and your people. Whatever information you can get from her, there's a lot more she could tell them about you. Between her and the fulcrum you are dangerously close to an indictment and you know it. You've made your point. Now you're going to let her go."

"You overplay your hand, Mr Reddington, as usual. This isn't a negotiation."

"Well then, if this isn't a negotiation you can look forward to reading about yourself in your morning paper. I've been saving some particularly juicy tidbits from the fulcrum for a special occasion." Red chuckled mirthlessly. "Kuwait? God that was a mess, fire and brimstone… Or something closer to home – how about Enron? Don't even get me started on that…"

"Yes, your recent revelations have made some of my associates nervous. They feel that an insurance policy is warranted to ensure that no more unfavourable stories come to light." His voice took on a hard quality. "The girl, Mr Reddington. Stop the exposés, and she stays alive."

 _Red paused. So that's it, he thought. They're going to use her to control him._ "I see. And assuming I comply, she won't be harmed in any way?"

"National security procedures must be adhered to, Mr Reddington" the director said casually. "Keen is a terrorist and a spy. She'll be detained in federal custody and interrogated as would any other prisoner of her ilk."

He felt his chest tighten. "Any information she gives them will lead back to you. Is it worth the risk?"

"I think it's doubtful that the warden of a level ten detention facility will give credence to the accusations of a Russian spy."

Red's stomach clenched. During the Braxton incident he'd spent less than 24 hours in the hands of security services at a level ten facility. He had seen things there he never wanted to see again.

When he didn't respond, the director continued. "I hear she was injured during her capture. She was lucky to survive. But then, perhaps when the interrogators get their hands on her she'll wish she hadn't. Pretty girl, isn't she? Like her mother... Behave yourself, Mr Reddington. If you don't, I guarantee she will pay for every one of your transgressions."

The director hung up before Red could respond. It didn't matter. He didn't have anything to say. He would have begged them on his knees not to hurt her if he'd thought it would have done any good. But it wouldn't. He felt bile rise in his throat and his chest tightening further, as though invisible fists were squeezing his lungs.

"Raymond?" Mr Kaplan and Dembe were watching him from the other side of the room.

"This isn't about information, it never was" he said, his expression unreadable. "It's about insurance. They're using her to keep me in line." He paused. "The director couldn't resist dropping into conversation that she's being held at a level ten facility. There aren't many of those. Notify Agent Ressler and his team, and let me know when they arrive."

"Raymond-" Dembe began.

"I'd like to be alone, please."

Dembe and Kaplan exchanged glances before exiting the room, leaving Red slumped in his chair.

They'd taken everything now, he thought. Even the safe place in his mind to which he always went for comfort. Her. She was his safe place, but it was no longer safe to think about her. Now his customary thoughts of her laughing and happy – fantasies inspired by his treasured photographs of her at birthdays, at her graduation - turned into thoughts of what she must be going through at the prison. Depending on which facility it was, she could have already been there for over twelve hours, injured, afraid and alone.

In his mind he heard her cry out, though his only reference for the sound was her climaxing in his arms, a memory which made his cock twitch before he quelled the thought, disgusted at himself. Losing her was a punishment. Punishment for his weakness and failure. Now she was gone his greatest comfort had become his greatest fear.

As he stared into the gloom he began to pore over and over the events that had precipitated her capture. What could he have done differently? He wondered if there was one thing, one moment that had determined the rest of the course from that point on. A butterfly flaps its wings and triggers a tsunami on the other side of the world.

If there was such a point, he couldn't help but think that somehow it was the moment his resolve had broken and he had taken her at last, almost weeping with equal parts joy and shame. It was the shame that spoke loudest in the darkness now, and shame, he knew, was a vicious mistress. It was that which led him to the conclusion of this bleakest of thought experiments, to the acknowledgement that it wasn't their joining at all that had led to this, for that and everything that followed had only been the inevitable outcome of events set in motion long before.

Now as he sat alone in the darkened room like a penitent in an empty confessional, he confronted truths he had previously turned from. That day, even as he had sedated her and laid her forlorn, unconscious body down on the bed, her face streaked with tears, he had desired her hopelessly and inappropriately, a need which had been growing year on year like a sickness. It was only a matter of time. Holding her, subduing her, the _control_ \- it was like blood to a shark already circling in the water.

He could no longer deny the allure of the power that comes with holding a life in one's hands, and he'd held hers for so long – monitoring her, pulling strings for her - he could barely remember a time when he hadn't drawn on it for comfort, solace, and yes, gratification.

 _You can watch her or have her watched. Keep her safe, try to ascertain her hopes, dreams, desires. But it's all about you. Salving your own guilt._

At what point had a desire to protect become a desire for absolution, become a desire to possess. Desire on desire on desire, until it's impossible to differentiate and all he knew for certain now was that it would never be enough. When they had finally come together he had expected – no, _needed_ – it to be the redemption and peace he so desperately craved, but it wasn't, and it wasn't the next time either. No. It was gasoline on a fire inside him that had started in a house twenty-seven years ago. _That_ was the moment.

 _Fool. Wretched, wretched, fool._

He longed for the bottle, alcohol-induced stupor now being his only refuge from the thoughts that plagued him. It wasn't an option – he had to stay clear headed. He reached for the cup of tea on the table, but as he did so his breath caught in his chest and he coughed, spilling the tea. It splashed on his fingers, causing the delicate china handle to slip from his grasp. It clattered on the table before rolling off and on to the carpet, its contents leaving a brown stain which complimented the others that adorned the carpet in the shabby room.

That evening, Dembe knocked on the door and entered, with Agents Ressler, Navabi and Mojtabai in tow. Red watched from his chair as their eyes darted furtively about the room, taking in the drab surroundings and the tea cup which still lay on the floor. None of them would dare to mention it. He wasn't going to waste time.

"You three are here because you have accepted a truth of the existence of a global conspiracy, a conspiracy which has claimed the freedom of two of your colleagues. You are here to offer your services in recovering them and you understand the risks you assume in taking this path."

Ressler stood silently, stony faced, while Samar offered a small nod. Aram was the only one who spoke. "Mr Reddington, there's nothing we want more than to help. It's clear there's something very wrong here. When they arrested Director Cooper I knew…" he trailed off under Red's hard gaze, and averted his eyes. "We're happy to help" he finished abruptly.

Ressler shook his head. "We're here. But don't think for a minute that I trust you. This is about getting Liz and Cooper back. After that, all bets are off. As far as I'm concerned, you're the one that belongs in prison."

Red's mouth spread into a plastic smile. "Look at us all working together, just like old times. Let's get started, shall we?"

~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~

When Liz woke up, she thought she was drowning again. Her hair was damp, her nose stung and there was something wet and heavy on her face. Her chest burned badly and a radiating pain spread from her shoulder in deep, agonizing bursts.

 _Shot, I was shot. It hurts. Please. It hurts so much._

She needed to scream, to externalise the pain somehow, but nothing happened except a small gurgle in her throat that made her think of blood.

There were people around her. She could hear them, voices getting closer. She opened her eyes but could only see shapes through the cloth. She had a strange sensation of falling although she wasn't moving.

"Again." she heard.

And then it came – more water, cold and musty tasting like hose water, in her face, up her nose, in her mouth. She convulsed, coughing and blinking, drawing water fizzling through the damp cloth as she tried to breathe.

Shortly afterwards, the rag was removed from her face. She was on her back at an incline, which gave her an uninformative view of a concrete ceiling. As she coughed and shivered a man came into view.

"Nice of you to join us, Miss Keen. Or do you prefer Miss Rostova?"

She closed her eyes again.

She barely heard anything after that. She just felt. The pain in her shoulder was exquisite – she could feel that the wound had been bandaged, but if she had ever been given pain medication it had long since worn off. The bandage was sodden, either with water or blood, or both. She couldn't tell.

She had no idea how long they kept her there, only that, by the end, she began to crave the water. The shock of the cold became a welcome distraction from the pain, the fight to breathe a reminder that she wanted to live. She'd almost let go last time – without him, she would have. Now she had a chance to fight for herself.

 _Like a baptism_ she thought. _My sins are being washed away._

Eventually the table on which she lay was tilted back to a horizontal position and the straps roughly unbuckled. She was pulled to her feet but her legs gave way underneath her. She felt strong arms wrap around her, and it was horribly familiar.

 _Drowning and pain and fear._

The voice, when it came, was different. It was deep, yes, but lacked the emotion that seemed to punctuate Red's gravelly tones.

"You're going to need to be stronger than that to survive in here."

She nodded mutely and tried to take a step forward, but her head and body didn't seem to communicate with one another. She stumbled forward and an arm caught her round her waist. A moment later she was off her feet, being carried like a child, a child that no one cared about.

Minutes later she was dumped onto the floor of a concrete cell, illuminated by a single fluorescent light and distinguished only by a wide metal bench and a grate in the floor. She pushed herself into a sitting position, shivering, her sodden grey jumpsuit clinging to her skin.

"You'll freeze to death in that" the warden said, matter-of-factly. "Take it off."

She didn't respond, except to pull her arms around herself.

He wrapped his fingers around his baton. "Do it. If you behave yourself I'll bring you a new one."

She began to unbutton the jumpsuit, her hands shaking, keeping her eyes on the floor.

"Bony little thing aren't you?" he said conversationally as she peeled the damp cloth down over her hips.

 _So familiar. But no tender touch. No warm bed. No 'Lizzie'._

"I don't know what Reddington saw in you."

 _Red._ She looked up at the warden then, scanning his weather-beaten face for something, some clue.

"Oh, so that got your attention, huh?"

She swallowed, willing her vocal chords to work. "Is he.." she whispered. "Is he.."

"Dead?" the warden supplied.

 _There was so much gunfire. So much smoke._

"As far as I know he's still out there, surviving like a damn roach, but it won't be for long mind you. I'm sure they'll get him on death row soon enough. He might even go before you."

She felt a sudden surge of adrenaline and sprang up from the floor, lunging at the warden, as grief and rage flooded her heart. She had next to no strength but he was taken by surprise and staggered backwards. Recovering quickly, he shoved her down onto the concrete floor.

"Watch your temper kitten or I'll throw you in with the other prisoners, just like that." He nodded at her naked form sprawled on the floor. Don't get many women in a level ten facility. Some of these animals haven't seen a woman in years."

He grabbed her jumpsuit from the floor and turned towards the door, but paused when he reached it. After a moment he turned back towards her, a strange look in his eye.

"You've got some fight left in you after all. Good. You're gonna need it."

TBC


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N The team put their plan into action, while Liz finds her strength in the most unlikely of situations. Standard warnings – this chapter is nasty, if mostly implied rather than graphic. I own nothing. I'd also like to take this opportunity to say how grateful I am to all of you for the wonderful feedback, it means so much :-)**

"Absolutely not." Red's voice cut through the dingy room like an anvil. His declaration was followed by silence which Samar eventually broke.

"I understand your reluctance. But we've done the research. The only way a prisoner is ever released from a level ten facility alive is for medical care that can't be provided on site."

Red fixed her with a hard stare, his voice descending to a deep growl. "You're talking about inducing a seizure that could very well kill her. I appreciate your success in locating her, but this proposal is unacceptable."

 _Unacceptable? He could throttle the woman with his bare hands for suggesting it. He needed them to be better than this. He hated them. He hated himself more._

Samar held his gaze. "She was shot – they'll need to do a wound check. They have to keep her alive to use against you. If she's seriously ill they will medevac her to another facility, and that's our window. The pilot will be one of ours. We need a doctor who can administer the medication and monitor her until she arrives at the secure hospital wing. Find someone who can do this, and we'll get him in. It's basically the same strategy used by the CIA to extract assets like Xiaoping Li from high security camps and prisons, but with a few modifications."

Red sucked in his cheeks and shook his head bleakly.

Ressler folded his arms. "It'll need to be someone with military training, preferably with a background in law enforcement. Someone who can pass as a prison doctor. And for the record, I'm not happy about it either. She was my partner. I don't want to do this to her any more than you, but it's a solid plan."

"Once I have their information I can set up a profile for them, credentials, IDs – say the word and I can get it done in less than three hours." Aram tried to smile encouragingly. "In the meantime I'm working on a dossier proving a conspiracy to falsify evidence in Assistant Director Cooper's case."

Samar looked uncomfortable. "Unfortunately we're reliant on the prison schedule for physician visits. Our window's in ten days' time."

 _Ten days._

Red stared at the moth-eaten green and brown carpet until Mr Kaplan stepped forward and stood beside him.

"I know what you're thinking, Raymond. There are significant risks, but I can say that I consider the risk of an out and out assault on the facility to be greater. I suggest Kevin Stanton - he had a distinguished military career as an army medic and is more than capable. Although it's unlikely he'll want to agree to this."

Red bent down and retrieved the tea cup from where it had fallen on the floor hours earlier and placed it back on the table thoughtfully. "Stanton's a good man" he said, almost to himself. "And he owes me a favor."

~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~

Liz jumped when her cell door clanged open. She remained seated on the floor, drawing her knees and arms up around herself to protect her modesty as far as that was possible given that she'd been left without a stitch of clothing. The night had been a bleak exercise in adaptation. She quickly found that the metal bench was impossible to sleep on; thrashing in her sleep, she had ended up rolling off agonisingly onto the concrete floor twice before deciding the best option was to sleep not on the bench, but under it. There, she discovered, it was slightly warmer, as if there was heat transfer from machinery in the room below. With the bench above her, she felt less exposed and managed to sleep several hours despite the powerful ache in her shoulder.

 _The bed in the lake house was so soft. Goose down pillows. The sheets some impossibly high thread count. I never noticed the care he must have taken. Never thanked him._

Now she looked up to see the warden, and did her best to remain expressionless. She may not be able to do much to hide her body from this man, but she needed to hide her mind. There was something in his manner that unsettled her, perhaps because he seemed almost friendly.

 _Perhaps because he seemed familiar._

Given the way he'd been looking at her she'd mentally prepared herself for him to touch her sexually, but so far he hadn't, his meaningful glances and occasional touches of her arm the only indicator that he might think of her in that way.

He nudged the cell door closed with his boot and lent against the wall, considering her in silence for a while before speaking.

"How did you sleep, kitten? How's the shoulder?"

 _Locking me in. Checking on me. Kitten. Lizzie._

Liz tried to focus and bite back the sarcastic response building in her throat. She had to conceal as much as she could from him; she could tell he was searching for an angle on her, probing her character, fortitude and fears for a way in, and she had to avoid giving it to him. She knew from her own training, once he had it, he wouldn't let it go and they'd break her all too soon.

 _Break me into pieces of a much larger puzzle. Until I'm lying in front of you, it won't go together._

He sighed at her lack of response, before bringing his hand out from behind his back and throwing a grey jumpsuit down on the floor in front of her.

"Think of this as an incentive to be a bit more cooperative today."

When she didn't move he stepped forward and crouched down in front of her, raising his hand to her face. She flinched, bracing herself for the impact of a palm or a fist, but he cupped her chin gently in his hand, tilting her head until she met his eye. As he did so she noticed that he had soft grey eyes that were presently filled with what looked like genuine concern.

"Relax kitten, I'm not going to hurt you."

 _Lizzie, I'm not going to hurt you. I will always do whatever I feel I have to do to keep you safe._

She couldn't help but shoot the warden an incredulous glare, which earned her a deep laugh from him. "Point taken - I'm not going to hurt you more than I have to. And I'm not going to do it here. I'm not a monster."

 _An inhumanly cruel or wicked person._

"Of course, if you cooperate, none of this will be necessary. Now put this on." He handed her the jumpsuit and stood up. She waited a moment, foolishly expecting him to leave, but quickly realised that he intended to watch her dress.

She rose from the floor with all the grace she could muster and climbed into the jumpsuit, not too quickly or slowly, keeping her features as blank as possible.

"You seem better this morning" he observed, narrowing his eyes. "Stronger. I think it's time we stopped messing around, don't you?" He gave her a penetrating stare. "To be honest, I don't believe the interrogation wing is any place for a girl like yourself, no matter what acts of treason you've committed. That's why I've no intention of dragging you in there every day for the next six months to squeeze what I can out of you. We're going to get this done fast, kitten. That means I'm going to go at you as hard as I need to, and you're going to cooperate so that I don't have to do anything that will keep me awake at night. Do you understand?"

Liz looked up at him then, and tried to speak as evenly as possible, her eyes wide and clear. "I understand. But it won't work" she said flatly. "It won't work because there isn't anything to tell except this: I'm being framed. I am not a spy for the Russians or anyone else. I didn't even find out that my biological parents were Russian until the week I was arrested. So you're going to be disappointed."

He shook his head and sighed as she spoke. "I thought you might say that." He removed a set of handcuffs from his belt and secured her hands behind her, the bar separating them twisting her wrists at a painful angle. He placed his hand on her back and gave her a gentle push.

"Let's see if we can't change your mind."

~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~

When the warden entered her cell on the tenth day she couldn't sit up, or bring herself to move enough to cover her nakedness. There was no point anyway. By now he'd examined every inch of her body and used it against her with chilling precision. Those kind grey eyes and calming tones were so deceptive, she thought dimly. He was a sociopath who enjoyed pretending to care about her for the extra thrill it brought to the moment he hurt her.

 _You've made that observation before, about someone else_ , said the treacherous voice in the back of her mind. She thought back to Ressler's warnings about Red, and then tried everything she could to forget, to focus on calming her mind.

 _My mind. My mind is still my own._

There was a certain peace to be found in knowing that she was alone, a certain simplicity and strength. As her abused body weakened, her mind seemed to grow sharper, and her resolve stronger. If she survived this, she would rain fire on the cabal, and on the warden and all those she found in their employ. She would find out what Red was hiding and discover the truth about her mother. She would clear Cooper's name. Let him be the public image of a wronged man caught in the good fight for justice. She had a different path now, of that she was sure. And it would be her own. Not the warden, not Red, not Tom or Ressler – no one would determine her future but her.

 _Break the body to purify the soul._

Not for the first time, she thought she was somehow being cleansed, her sins being stripped away; her father, the harbourmaster, Tom…. How lost and worthless she had felt when she lay down for him on the boat.

 _Do you know how filthy that makes me feel._

A thousand showers couldn't wash it away, but this… oh this was exquisite.

 _This is my life. That is all that matters._

In what had become a standard routine, the warden stood over her, and offered her a jumpsuit for her to wear during the transfer from her cell to the interrogation wing. When it became clear that she hadn't the strength to put it on herself, he lifted her up and helped to dress her like a child, his fingers brushing over her skin as he buttoned the front, making her shudder.

"I'm sorry to do this to you kitten. I really am."

Liz kept her eyes on the floor. "Really? Because I think you love it." She whispered. "I think you get off on it."

His hands froze as he reached the last button, before sliding up, the pressure of his thumbs increasing steadily until they reached the base of her neck.

"If you'd like to find out what gets me off I'd be happy to show you." His voice was dangerously quiet for a moment before he released her and his mask of pleasantness returned. "But first, the doctor's in today - it's time to get that shoulder of yours patched up. I can't have you dying of an infection on me can I?"

When they reached the infirmary she found it to be a cold, sparse room with a padded grey examination bed, a table, a large filing cabinet and a set of plastic drawers. She saw the doctor sitting on a stool at the table, leafing through a chart. He was a middle aged man with close cropped military style hair and glasses, his coat startlingly white in contrast to the grey, drab surroundings. He looked up and smiled at her.

"You must be Miss Keen. I'm just going to have a look at your shoulder and change the dressing." He indicated the examination bed. "Sit up here please."

He watched as the warden walked her to the bed before returning to stand in the doorway, arms crossed. She hesitated for a moment and he put out a hand to help her up, before grabbing a large medical supply case and drawing the stool over to the bed.

"Right, if I could just see the wound."

She began to unbutton the jumpsuit, her fingers shaking. The doctor's brow creased fractionally when he realised she didn't appear to be wearing anything underneath. He turned to the warden. "I think we're fine here, thank you warden. I'm sure the patient would appreciate some privacy."

The warden frowned. "Come on Doc, you know better than that. I can't leave a prisoner unattended."

The doctor seemed flustered for a second before recovering. "Of course. She just doesn't look like she's going to cause any trouble."

"You'd be surprised" the warden said pointedly. The doctor turned back to Liz and she thought she saw him grimace slightly. He opened the medical kit and put on a pair of surgical gloves, averting his eyes while she slid her arm awkwardly out of the jumpsuit and pulled it back up to cover her chest.

She thought she heard him hiss under his breath when he saw the state of the bandage, but he said nothing, instead studiously going about the work of cleaning and re-dressing the wound. He was gentle and efficient. When he was done, he removed the gloves and, she noted, slipped them in his pocket rather than in the trash. He bent down into the kit and retrieved a syringe, filling it from a small vial.

"What's that?" The warden's voice echoed slightly in the room.

The doctor remained focussed on preparing the syringe. "Pain medication."

"Sorry Doc, I can't allow that. Can't have prisoners on drugs."

"I'm well aware of the regulations, warden. It's not an opiate. We wouldn't want to violate Miss Keen's constitutional rights, would we?" he said, his voice developing a hard edge.

The warden nodded warily, and Liz watched as the doctor raised the syringe to her arm. Even through her haze of dizziness she noticed his swallow, the way his hands shook slightly. She knew something was wrong, but before she could decide whether or not to protest he had injected her and, strangely, had taken hold of her hand. A moment later her eyes rolled back in her head and she began seizing violently.

The warden stepped forward sharply. "What's happening? What have you done?"

Laying her down, the doctor retrieved a pencil light from his pocket and checked her pupillary reflex. His tone was clipped and urgent. "She's having a seizure. Either she's allergic to the pain medication or she's developed encephalitis from that damned wound. I should have been called earlier. We need to get her to a hospital now."

"Absolutely not."

The doctor looked up then, and confronted the warden with a stare that was worthy of Red himself.

"Warden, you're not understanding me - I'm evacuating this patient to hospital and I'm doing it now. If I don't, she'll die."

TBC


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N Liz makes a stand, and Dembe and Mr Kaplan have serious concerns about Red. Angsty angsty angst, as you have come to expect from this fic. As always I own nada, and as always I appreciate reviews so very much :-)**

 _Too many times_. She's been here too many times, he thought numbly as he sat beside her hospital bed, watching the shallow rise and fall of the blankets as she breathed. Red practically knew her medical history off by heart, having gone through it meticulously when he'd learned she planned to adopt a child. His concern had gone beyond her husband; for reasons he couldn't really grasp at the time he'd needed to know whether she was unable to conceive. But no, there was nothing to indicate that she couldn't have a child naturally, and he'd felt relief of the kind he'd had no right to feel.

Before he had walked into the FBI two years ago she had been hospitalized only once, at the age of thirteen when her appendix had been removed. He almost smiled at the memory – Sam had been beside himself with worry; one of the many moments he had shown himself to be every bit her father. Since her work on the Blacklist she had been hurt often, and he'd hated himself every time, knowing that he was responsible and knowing that he was the last person she wanted to comfort her. The one time he'd allowed himself to go to her bedside she had been unconscious, fighting the effects of a deadly virus contracted because of her bull-headedness, her recklessness… her bravery.

The latest additions to her medical history made for grim reading. Although the bullet in her shoulder hadn't hit anything major, the wound had been poorly cared for and a considerable fever suggested that it had become infected. Her chart documented deep, uniform hematomas on her arms, torso and thighs, most likely from having been restrained; he'd read the doctor's notes on this several times, but hadn't disturbed the neat blankets covering her in order to see for himself. Finally, the doctor had charted that her electrolytes were dangerously low on her arrival, and noted that this could be attributed to dehydration. Red suspected that the primary cause was considerably worse than that, but did his utmost to avoid thinking about what she may have suffered at the hands of black-ops security services.

Now as he looked at her lying in front of him like an embodied accusation, her face pale and angular, he knew it was enough. His heart broke for her.

 _Poor girl. It's enough. Whatever happens, whatever dangers remain, I will not allow her to be the one to face it ever again._

His reverie was broken by the low murmurings of Dr Stanton and Mr Kaplan by the door. They had cleared the entire floor of the private hospital, which made the atmosphere eerily quiet save for the low beeps of the monitors at her bedside and the whisperings outside the door.

He looked up when the doctor entered the room, flanked by Mr Kaplan, her expression unreadable as ever.

"Well?"

Stanton gripped the clipboard in his fingers, his knuckles turning white. "Her EEG results are encouraging, all within normal range. However…To be honest Mr Reddington I would have hoped for her to have woken earlier than this. It's a waiting game now."

Red tilted his head slightly, his eyes glittering. "A waiting game" he echoed, rolling his tongue around the words. "Let's say, for the sake of argument, that _I am not a patient man_."

The doctor twitched nervously, but to his credit, maintained eye contact with Red. He had always known him to be a good natured, generous man, whatever nefarious dealings he seemed to have going on, but he could tell this was different.

"I'm sorry I can't be more specific, Mr Reddington. I am giving you the same information I would the loved ones of any other patient in her condition. Time is critical. The longer she is unconscious, the less likely it is that she will wake up."

Red stared at him blankly, before dropping his head a moment. It seemed as though he was going to speak, but he merely nodded and turned back to her, taking her hand gently in his.

"I'll be back every thirty minutes to check on her" Stanton ventured before swiftly leaving the room.

Mr Kaplan made to follow him, but turned back at the sound of Red's voice, so deep as to be barely audible.

"How many must I lose, Kate. Is this…gift…going to be stripped away so soon." He ran a trembling hand down his face. "You know, as I sit here, I contemplate the suffering I will visit on every organisation, every individual who had a hand in this, my wrath will know no bounds…And yet I'm confronted with a painful and inescapable truth… that I must begin with myself. I am culpable. And I am damned."

Kaplan placed a hand on his shoulder. "You can't do this to yourself, Raymond. And it's far from over. She's been through a lot. The body needs time to heal. The mind too. Give her time, and focus on the next stage. Agent Mojtabai has compiled a compelling dossier outlining the role of cabal members in Assistant Director Cooper's case, in addition to the falsified evidence that was provided to the DOJ regarding Elizabeth and her role in Senator Hawkins's death. We've got them where we need them. All that's left is to strike."

Red nodded slowly. "And strike we will." His voice dropped into a menacing growl but caught in his throat, eliciting a deep, rumbling cough.

Kaplan frowned. "I don't like that cough, Raymond. You've had it since your return and it's only worsened. Don't think I haven't noticed."

Red shook his head. "Don't fuss, Kate. It's nothing."

Kaplan narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. "When did you last sleep? You're no good to her tired and sick. Go back to the hotel Raymond, now. Sleep. And if you can't do that, at least get a shower, eat something and change your clothes."

"Kate-"

"No arguments, Raymond. Take one of the guards. Dembe and I will stay with her."

Red considered the woman's immutable expression for a moment before sighing and nodding. He rose to his feet, pausing to scan Liz's pale face one more time for any sign of movement, before kissing her hand and placing it gently back on the blanket. He turned to Mr Kaplan and hugged the woman in silent gratitude before leaving.

~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~

Unable to contemplate food or sleep, Red showered and changed quickly, wasting no time in getting back to the hospital. When he pushed through the double doors of the private wing he saw Dembe emerge from Liz's room at some speed and looked at him questioningly.

"Raymond, she is awake."

Red's eyes widened as the words sunk in, and his pace quickened.

"Is she ok? Talk to me. _Is she ok?_ "

"The doctor is with her."

Red rounded the corner of her room to see Dr Stanton standing next to her bed, holding his finger up for her to follow. Her eyes moved with the doctor's index finger but stopped when they met Red's as he stood in the doorway. Stanton turned then and, seeing Red, stepped back from the bed.

"Everything looks good, but I'll want to get another scan and keep you on IV antibiotics for that shoulder."

Liz looked away from Red and back to the doctor.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome Miss Keen. I'll be back shortly."

Stanton left the room, and Red closed the door behind him before removing his hat and coat and placing them neatly on a chair.

"How are you feeling?" His voice emerged much deeper from his chest than he had intended and he watched as she closed her eyes for a moment.

"Tired."

Red nodded and came round to sit beside her. A lock of hair fell over her face as she turned her head to see him better and he reached out instinctively to tuck it behind her ear. She flinched as he raised his hand and he lowered it again wordlessly, balling it into a tight fist when it was out of her eye-line. His gut suddenly burned with a violent, irrational hatred of the fact that Dembe and Dr Stanton had seen her before he had, that she had seen them first when she woke. He felt for a moment as though he'd lost his window, though for what he wasn't sure.

It was an extraordinarily rare occurrence that Red was unsure of what to say, but now his subconscious offered too many options, ranging from heartfelt apologies for failing to protect her, to declarations of love and devotion. Nothing seemed adequate, and so he said nothing, only reaching out very slowly to lay his hand over hers where it lay on top of the blanket.

Slowly, she interlaced her thin fingers with his and it was like a reprieve. His eyes stung with unshed tears and he thought to himself that she could ask anything, ask _for_ anything, and he would give it to her. He would give her everything.

"Red-" She paused and swallowed with the effort of speaking. "What Ressler said. About you. My mother. Please. I need to know."

 _Anything. But not that. Not that sweetheart. Not now._

He frowned for a moment, and then offered her a sad smile. "Lizzie. You need to focus on getting better now, sweetheart. Nothing else matters at the moment."

She closed her eyes for a moment, her fingers clenching into a ball under his hand. "It matters to me" she said as forcefully as she could. She opened her eyes again. "Cooper-"

Red nodded and spoke in his most soothing tones. "It's alright Lizzie. Your friends on the task force have been busy bees uncovering the evidence necessary to exonerate him. The cabal is on the back foot. They made a costly mistake arranging for you to be detained in a black site without a trial or discussion at a senate hearing. In a case such as yours… justice must be seen to be done. They're unraveling."

A ghost of a smile crossed her lips then. "My being captured… it was a good thing. It will help to expose them."

Red bit the inside of his cheek as though her words caused him physical pain. He spoke softly but his eyes were fierce. "No Lizzie. Nothing – _nothing_ – is worth that. Not if the cost is you."

She sighed faintly, her lids heavy. "I know it's strange. But in a way…being there… it helped me focus. I know what I need. The truth, Red. I need the whole truth from you."

She watched as he worked his jaw in silence for a moment.

"I'm serious Red. I can't go back to the way things were, all the secrets… not now. I'm giving you the chance to tell me yourself. If you don't I will find a way to get to Ressler and find out for myself."

He regarded her stoically, the tell-tale twitch under his eye the only sign that he had processed her ultimatum. After a beat he nodded and rose to his feet, leaning over the bed to place a gentle kiss on her forehead. He hesitated a moment before placing another, tender kiss on her lips.

"Sleep now Lizzie. The rest will come, I promise."

He turned and collected his coat, palming his hat onto his head as he left the room. He found Dembe outside and, checking that the other guards he placed were still in position, motioned him to follow as he walked briskly down the corridor, reeling off instructions.

"Now that she's awake it's imperative that we move her as quickly as possible. They'll be checking every care facility within a hundred mile radius - it's only a matter of time before they get here. Prepare the cottage in Sweetwater – procure all the necessary equipment and supplies and arrange for a live-in nurse. See if you can track down the APRN who looked after me after Marrakech, Clara. She'll be a good match for Elizabeth's wit…"

He paused as he saw Dr Stanton approaching down the corridor. "Kevin. I am most grateful for everything that you have done but regretfully time is not on our side and we will need to move her to a more secure location."

Stanton frowned. "I hardly need to say that I don't consider it wise to move her yet."

"You do not. I assure you she will be in very capable hands, Kevin. Finish up your tests - we leave tomorrow."

The doctor nodded warily.

"One more thing." Red approached him and put a hand on his arm, lowering his voice slightly. "It's an absolute bitch of a flight. She'll need to be sedated for the journey."

Stanton looked from Red's hand on his arm to his face. "I don't believe that to be necessary, Mr Reddington."

Red smiled artificially and patted him on the back. "I do." He turned and continued walking down the corridor. "Dembe – call ahead and have them prepare the house."

"Raymond-"

"Liaise with Mr Kaplan."

"Raymond." Dembe paused, his brow furrowed. "I am sorry my friend. Are you sure you wish to do this? I heard your conversation. She asks and still you do not tell her."

Red stopped then and turned round to face him, his expression dark. "What would you have me do? Tell her now and risk her running when she's at her most vulnerable? Dembe you're not thinking clearly."

Dembe nodded slowly. "Forgive me, Raymond, but are you sure it is not you who does not think clearly?" Red's mouth dropped open slightly.

Dembe's brow was creased with concern as he continued "You are afraid that she will reject you when she learns the truth. Your desire to take her away like this…to conceal the truth…Is it possible it comes not from fear for her, but for yourself? Raymond, the man I know would not do this."

Red felt a wave of anger flare inside him. When he spoke it was with a threatening rumble he had seldom employed on his friend before. "Do not presume too much upon our friendship Dembe. I will do whatever I feel is necessary to protect her and I would appreciate it if you would help me do that without questioning my motives." He paused, sighing. When he spoke again his tone had softened. "I know that the past few months have been difficult for you too, my friend. But understand - we are heading into the eye of the storm. It's imperative that she be shielded from it during her recovery, whatever it takes."

Dembe nodded solemnly. "Whatever it takes" he echoed slowly.

 _Damn Dembe. Damn him and his good heart. His conscience._

Unable to bear his friend's penetrating gaze any longer, Red turned and stalked down the corridor, guilt tearing at his insides.

TBC


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N Red struggles with his inner demon, the sin-eater inside, while Lizzie tries to hold her own in her new reality. The angst in this story was always about a 10 so I guess I've cranked it up to 11 here. Warnings: mega angst, mild smut and a reference to domestic violence. Thoroughly disclaimed. And I looovvvveeee reviews, they keep me going :-)**

When Liz woke she was shrouded in warmth and felt more comfortable than she could remember feeling. She flexed her fingers and clutched at impossibly soft sheets, before opening her eyes towards a warm light. As her vision came into focus she saw that the light was coming from a large bay window set with heavy, deep crimson and cream drapes, hanging under a large oak beam. She turned her head and found that the luxurious window setting was more than matched by the rest of the room, which had an old-fashioned white marble mantelpiece topping an open fireplace, and dark wood, beautifully upholstered furniture. The room was large, with two doors, though she wasn't sure which one was the exit.

The warmth and comfort she had previously felt was replaced then by a creeping fear in her gut. Where the hell was she? She tried to clear her head but everything was so fuzzy – she got the feeling she was supposed to be right where she was, but didn't know why, and had no recollection of the room in which she found herself. She tried to raise her hand to her eyes to wipe away the sleep and was met with a sudden sharp pain. She looked down and saw an IV in her arm, hooked up to a bag behind her head. If the room in front of her looked like a luxury period home, the area behind her was, in stark contrast, more like a hospital room with IV stands, monitors, an oxygen mask… She realised then that despite its size and luxurious sheets, the bed she occupied was a hospital one, with raised sides and buttons all around her head.

 _Hospital. She'd been in the hospital._

A sudden wave of panic washed over her and she began to tear at the cannula in her arm, crying out in frustration at the mess of tubes and sticky tape. At that moment one of the doors opened and a middle-aged woman with dark, greying hair and rosy cheeks came in with a look of concern.

"Out! I want this out!" Liz tore frantically at the tape.

The woman approached her calmly and removed a pair of scissors from her apron.

"I'll do that for you right away Miss Keen, but I'll need you to hold still, ok?"

Liz frowned. The woman had a very heavy Irish accent, so thick she had to think for a moment to process what she had said. She seemed friendly and unfazed, so Liz nodded and allowed her to remove the cannula, which she did with evident skill and compassion.

"I'm Clara" she said as she worked. "I'm a registered nurse and I'm only here to look after you."

Liz studied the woman's face and then cast her eyes about the room again. "Am I in Ireland?" she ventured, her mind still jumbled.

The woman laughed hard at that, a pleasant, warming sound. "Bless you no! Though I would you were – I'd wager a bit of Irish country air would do you the power of good. You're in Sweetwater Miss Keen, in Mr Reddington's house."

Her stomach lurched and she closed her eyes for a moment. "Mr Reddington's house…" she echoed.

"That's right" she said cheerily. "I know you're a bit groggy and confused but you're perfectly safe here, I promise." She patted her hand confidently. "I'll go get Mr Reddington shall I?"

"No!" Liz was surprised at the power she managed to put behind her refusal. "I mean…I need some time…"Liz paused to collect herself and then looked the woman in the eye. " _Mr Reddington_ will have to wait."

Clara surprised her then by laughing and giving her a broad smile. "Quite right. You take all the time you need. We can't let him push us around now can we?"

Liz smiled gratefully at that.

"Now, is there anything I can get you Miss Keen?"

"Please call me Liz. I'm fine…I'd like to be alone for a bit if that's ok. I just need to get my bearings."

Clara nodded in comprehension. "There's water on your table here, and the bathroom is just through that door." She held up a button attached to the side of the bed. "Press this if you need anything at all and I'll be right here. In any case I'll be back in an hour or so with some dinner for you. I imagine you'll also be interested in some pain medication by then if not before. I unhooked your IV because you asked me to and I want you to know that you can trust me, but you will want something soon I imagine."

"No" Liz said firmly. "No pain medication, nothing that is going to stop me thinking. No offense, but I need to be able to look after myself."

Clara smiled at her, if a little sadly this time. "I understand." She walked towards the door, but turned back to speak before she left, her expression suddenly serious. "I want you to know that I'm here to look after you and your best interests…not his."

~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~

Red got up from the sofa in the living room, glancing at the ornate grandfather clock in the corner of the room as he did so. She'd been asleep for hours, but about half an hour ago he had begun to hear voices coming from her room. He walked to the over-mantle mirror and straightened his tie, pausing to observe his reflection in the bevelled glass. The illusion of Raymond 'Red' Reddington was a force to be reckoned with; an impeccably dressed, charming but powerful man with an urbane manner and a ruthless hand where occasion required.

The reality was quite different. As he observed himself in the glass he noted the depths of the lines around his eyes and mouth, the way the skin on his neck had become ever so slightly loose, and the sallow skin tone that highlighted the dark indents under his eyes. He placed his hands on the mantelpiece, his eyes flicking over the gleaming white scars nestled in between hair and freckles, each with their own sordid tale. He'd done terrible things with those hands.

His weary reflection stared back at him now, making a mockery of his charming façade and showing the truth of what he was, just like Dorian Gray's ghastly portrait. It occurred to him that, like the occult painting, he was a sin-eater and the evil he absorbed was beginning to show through the cracks. He could no longer hide it from her. Even those closest to him had begun to question him.

The door opened behind him and he turned with a broad smile as Clara stepped into the room.

"Well if it isn't the lady with the lamp! How's the patient?"

"Disoriented, but otherwise as well as can be expected. I'd say she's mighty cheesed off with you, though."

Red nodded stiffly. "Yes, well I have the unfortunate distinction of eliciting that reaction from many of the women in my life. Thank you, Clara." He turned and walked towards the door.

"She doesn't want to see you just now."

He turned back and was met with a firm stare from Clara, who stood with her arms folded. _Lord save me from another Kate Kaplan._

"She can't avoid me for ever."

"She just needs some time, Raymond. I told her I'd check on her in an hour. We'll see how she's doing then" she said with an air of finality.

Red paused at the door before returning to his seat on the sofa and clasping his hands together. Being hated was exhausting. "At least tell me how she is" he said tightly. "Tell me she's not in any pain."

Clara pursed her lips. "I'm afraid she's not too keen on being medicated right now and I'm more than inclined to let her have her way if it makes her feel more in control."

Red's expression darkened. "For God's sake, I brought you here to look after her!"

"You brought me here to look after her interests and that's exactly what I am doing" Clara responded smoothly. "You need to tread carefully helping someone who doesn't want to be helped."

Red laughed bitterly. "I've been made aware of that in recent years." He rose from the sofa and returned to his position in front of the over-mantel mirror, his head down. He heard the door close as Clara left the room, and raised his head slowly to look at his reflection again. The sin-eater stared back at him, lined and grim, in apparent mockery of his all-consuming love for the girl upstairs.

~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~

A heavy clang from the clock in the corner alerted him to the time. It was 11pm and he'd heard nothing more from Clara or Liz. His fingers closed around the scotch decanter, his thumb brushing over the lines of the cut crystal. He paused and then set it back on the table, before making for the stairs. He couldn't wait any longer to see her, but he owed it to her to be sober when he did. He knocked quietly on her door, but received no answer. She was most likely asleep by now, which was probably for the best. He just needed to look at her, to see that she was safe and comfortable.

He opened the door and entered quietly, finding the room awash with the soft orange glow of the night light. As he approached the bed he was surprised when he was met by a piercing blue gaze. She was awake and sitting up. He approached the foot of the bed.

"May I sit down?"

She nodded wordlessly and he moved round to the side, pulling up one of the thick, upholstered chairs.

They sat in silence for a moment before he spoke again, his voice deep and even.

"I trust you're comfortable."

She breathed in audibly but didn't answer him, only staring at him with disconcertingly limpid blue eyes.

"What have you done?" she said finally, her voice little more than a tight whisper. "What have you done, Red?"

Red rolled his tongue in painful thought, before nodding. "I understand you're upset with me and I'm sorry for that." He paused. "I've made it abundantly clear to you that I will do what is necessary to protect you, and this _was necessary_ , Lizzie. The hospital was too exposed."

Liz shook her head slowly. "I'm not talking about you bringing me here…. What have you done that is so terrible that you have to go to these lengths to keep it from me?"

"Lizzie, I needed to-"

"Don't! Do not tell me this was all to keep me safe. I don't believe you."

Red raised a weary hand to his forehead, unable to meet her eye as they sat together in painful silence until he heard her voice again, quieter this time.

"I saw the garden from the window. This house is beautiful. Is it yours? Or is it another borrowed place?"

"I own it" he said quietly "although I don't think of it as 'mine' exactly. It's a safe haven for those who need some peace."

"How did you end up with it?"

"That's a rather sad story Lizzie, perhaps best for another time."

A flash of anger shot across her face. "If you're not going to answer a single question however innocuous then just leave. Go!"

He winced and paused for a moment before speaking. "The house belonged to a sometime employee of mine, quite a talented forger. She had problems with her husband and, as I understood it, she inherited this house and used it as a sanctuary away from him when necessary. Anyway, I'm sorry to say it ended tragically as it so often does in these cases. When I learned later that this house was going to be torn down by developers I bought the place and the surrounding land in the hopes that it would continue to be a safe haven of sorts."

"You're right, that is a sad story."

Red nodded, his voice taking on far-away quality. "Love makes people powerless. And dangerous. She should have left him when she had the chance."

"What happened to the husband?"

"He paid for his crimes."

"He's in prison?"

"No."

Red's expression was inscrutable but a dark flash in his eyes as he said it left Liz in no doubt of the husband's fate. She felt numb as she settled back against the pillows, her eyelids heavy with impending sleep.

"I would have come."

"Lizzie?"

"If you'd asked me. At the hospital. I would have come with you here." She paused, sighing. "We can't keep doing this, Red. You have to trust me with the truth."

"I'm trying, Lizzie" he said, his voice pained.

"I know you think you are." She sounded resigned. "Clara – she said something about being here to look after my interests and not yours. You knew she'd keep you in line."

Red chuckled softly. "I knew she'd keep one of us in line – I wasn't sure which. Perhaps both of us," he smiled. "Lizzie, if you'll permit me I'd like to stay-"

She cut him off. "Actually I'm tired, Red. I think you should go now."

He dropped his head and swallowed. He rose to his feet and paused for a moment, placing his hand on the blanket near her hand. When she didn't respond, he nodded silently and left the room, his slightly sagging shoulders the only indication of pain he felt.

~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~

When sleep finally came in the small hours he had a terrible nightmare. He found himself back in front of the ornate mirror in the living room, his reflection leering at him, distorted and cruel. Desperate to escape the unforgiving image of his darkened soul he went upstairs to seek her out, to seek comfort and forgiveness in her arms. He opened her bedroom door and found not the room she occupies now, but the room in the lake house with its broad, white cotton bed spread and sun-bleached furniture. The room was bathed in silver light and he saw her kneeling on the bed, naked as the day she was born, her back to him.

Instantly aroused, he knelt behind her on the bed, sweeping her dark curls aside and kissing the graceful turn of her neck. She arched into him and he slipped his hand around her, gently fondling her breasts. She gasped, but when the sound reached his ears it was a pained, gurgling cry like a wounded animal. Holding her close, he felt something warm and sticky covering his hands. Crimson blood began to seep through his fingers from an unknown source; he pressed his hands frantically against her in an attempt to stem the flow but there was too much. He clutched her desperately as she sank down in his arms, her head rolling to the side, bringing her face into view. Gripped by an ice-cold horror, he saw then that it wasn't her at all, but her mother: Katerina Rostova, lying in his arms as the light faded from her piercing blue eyes.

TBC


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N Red's plan comes to fruition but he is forced to make a devastating revelation. Major, major angst and a good amount of smut. Smangst. NSFW. I don't own the Blacklist but I bloody love it. I also love reviews :-)**

Liz was still weak, but under the care of an ever watchful Clara her fever had subsided and her shoulder was healing well. After a week had passed she had expressed a desire to move from the electric hospital bed to a normal one, and Red was grateful that she wanted something practical that he could give her freely. At Red's instruction, Dembe had dismantled the electric bed before setting about the somewhat herculean task of resituating the carved oak four-poster that had occupied the room previously.

It was, in Red's estimation, a little ostentatious, but certainly in keeping with the house's old-world aesthetic. Liz's reaction when she saw the bed had been priceless; he recalled how she had looked at him, scandalized, an eyebrow raised as if to say ' _really?_ ' and he had merely shrugged and offered her a boyish smile. For that moment at least, he had seen a glimmer of their old dynamic and he had clung to it like oxygen in an otherwise stifling room.

And it was stifling. He needed her like air, and still she withheld it, eschewing his company for Clara's, or for an eerie solitude that he was desperate to break. Delighted as he was that day when the news came that the mission to extract her from the detention facility had been successful, it seemed to him that since her return she had felt as absent as ever, perhaps even more so. As the days went by the thought that she could heal and find freedom again without him weighed on him heavily.

What he lacked in progress with her he compensated for in abundance in work done on her behalf. He had busied himself completing his assault on the cabal, pursuing them relentlessly and shining lights in every corner in which they hid. As he had predicted, their implication of Cooper in Connolly's murder and their detention and subsequent loss of Lizzie had left them vulnerable, drawing attention to their networks within law enforcement. They were now thoroughly exposed, fire-fighting in offices, in the press, in police stations and county halls. Every day a new cabal member was exposed, and senate hearings had been convened over the last fortnight to deal with the implications of a conspiracy of this magnitude.

As he had hoped, agent Ressler had agreed that if he were to aid in the exposure of the cabal and the conspiracy against Liz and Cooper, he would make a case for an immunity deal for Liz in Connolly's murder. It would not be an easy thing to achieve; were he to succeed, she would never be able to work in law enforcement again and she would have to live under an assumed name. She would, however, have her freedom, which is what he promised her.

Under other circumstances he would have thrived on the adrenaline of a plan come to fruition, and on the hope that out of the wreckage the full truth of his own past might be revealed. However, he now found himself thinking more and more not of the past but of the future, and the inescapable truth that he was drawing nearer to the day that she would no longer need his help.

Now, he watched from the window as she walked in the garden with Dembe at her side, completing rehab much as he had been instructed to do. They had matching wounds, and a joint fare in aimless walking, he thought. Yet even as he longed to be the one to take her arm and escort her through the rose-threaded archways and winding paths of the charming cottage garden he was condemned to watching her from the shadows as he had for so much of her life.

Whilst she had improved greatly, she was still thin and weak; her long, shaky legs and large eyes put him in mind of one of the wild fawns from the Sweetwater herd as she made her way through the garden. As he observed her delicate features, pale and lovely amongst the roses, his stomach jolted when he saw her stumble before being caught by Dembe's strong and gentle arms. He saw her smile at him gratefully as he steadied her and was consumed with burning jealousy that he had not been the one on the receiving end of that smile, jealousy that gave way to an aching sadness at the thought that he may never be again.

To make matters worse, her attitude towards him seemed to be reflected in the eyes of the other occupants of the house. Dembe had said nothing on the subject of Elizabeth since their confrontation of the hospital, but Red felt disapproval and disappointment emanating from him as loudly as if he had voiced his concerns directly. Clara also was cool and brisk; she had said nothing specific, but he got the impression that she both suspected and disapproved of the nature of his feelings for Elizabeth. In short, his usually charismatic affect was dwarfed by her presence in the house. Even in her wan and quiet state she had managed to charm those around her, though consciously at least he didn't begrudge her the affection she elicited from his companions, only them her company where she bestowed it.

After her walk in the garden she retired to her room as usual, but surprised him later in the day by joining him in the sitting room. He smiled as he took in her appearance as she hovered by the door. Her hair was slightly damp and tousled from the shower, and she wore a thick, plush robe in a deep claret hue tied tightly around her slender frame. The task of buying appropriate clothes for her had been given to a trusted female assistant ahead of their flight to Sweetwater, but this robe was one of his own purchases from a luxury boutique in Venice the previous year. At the time he had told himself it would do to have on hand for any of his female companions who might require it, but in truth he had thought only of her perfect ivory skin wrapped in the luxurious dark red material. In his mind it had always been hers and therefore it had remained wrapped in tissue paper until now.

He rose from the sofa to greet her, though he remained a respectful distance from her. "Lizzie it's good to see you" he said softly. "How are you? How's the bed?" he added, the corner of his mouth curving into a playful smile.

She raised her eyebrows at him although her expression remained soft. "It's fine thank you." She paused and then rolled her eyes. "Ok, it's the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in, even if it does make me feel like a princess locked in a tower."

Red smiled at her sadly. "You are not locked in a tower, Lizzie."

"Then why does it feel that way?" she said, now serious. "Why do I feel that, however lovely this place is, I'm just living in a nicer version of the prison?"

Red flinched at her words, the tension in his face visibly increasing.

"I'm sorry" she sighed. "I know how ungrateful that sounds. I just feel so powerless."

Red nodded, his voice deep and weary. "I told you that when the time comes you will be free to make any choice you want, and you will Lizzie. You have nothing to fear from me."

She looked at him uncertainly from under thick, dark lashes, her hand moving unconsciously to her wrist to worry her scar. "I want to believe you. You don't know how much I want to believe you, Red" she said quietly. She shifted her weight to her other side and winced a little.

Seeing this, he took a step towards her. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. I…" She looked at him again and seemed to change her mind about what she was going to say. His face was cracked with concern; he was desperate to help her if only she'd let him. "It does hurt" she conceded.

His frown deepened. "Say the word and I can have Clara here at the drop of a hat to give you something."

Liz shook her head, her mouth set in a pinched line. "She's given me some Advil and I don't want anything else. I need to keep some control Red. I think you understand that."

He nodded tightly and then titled his head to the side, before extending his hand to her, gesturing for her to approach him. After a moment she seemed to resolve an internal battle and walked to him, allowing him to envelop her in his arms. He drew her to his chest, lost momentarily in the feel of her warmth against him, the softness of the red robe and the smell of her damp hair as she clung to him. He gently kissed the top of her head before murmuring ever-so softly "There are other ways to relieve pain, Lizzie."

He felt her tense in his arms but she didn't pull away, and so he gently turned her unresisting body around so that she was facing away from him, the back of her head resting against his shoulder. He placed gentle kisses on her neck, and melted inside when he heard a quiet moan of appreciation in her throat. Holding her round the waist with one arm, he loosened her robe and slid his other hand inside, cupping a warm breast in his hand before pinching her nipple, rolling it between his fingers.

She sighed and leant back against him and he tightened his arm around her waist, supporting her slender frame. She had lost so much weight - not surprising given what she had been through but distressing none-the-less. He daydreamed about the sumptuous meals he would cook for her, about keeping her in the lap of luxury and feeding her all manner of delicacies while she lounged in silk pajamas like the goddess she was. He allowed his hand to wander down inside her robe, wincing a little at the feel of her ribs. He hummed with pleasure when he reached her fine hair and paused there, his hand resting on her abdomen with a gentle pressure.

He brought his lips to her ear, his voice deep and soothing. "Spread your legs a little, sweetheart."

At that she made an uncertain noise and he felt her pull away slightly. "Red, I…someone might see."

"Shhhhhhh, Lizzie. You're ok. No one will disturb us."

Pulling her back to him he gently coaxed her legs apart, groaning when he ran a finger between her thighs and found that she was aroused. He thought of the first time he had touched her like this, suddenly desperate to recreate the magic of that moment, however confused it had been. Slowly he began to work his fingers down there, spreading her natural moisture and applying light pressure before gently sliding his middle finger inside her. She whimpered then, leaning more of her weight against him as he tightened his arm around her.

"You're ok" he said softly, "you're going to be ok."

Kissing her hair, he returned his fingers to her clit, maintaining a gentle, steady rhythm until he felt her legs begin to tremble. She moaned quietly against his neck and he held her steady as soothing waves of ecstasy washed over her again and again. Her head rolled on his shoulder as she breathed through the last sweet swell of orgasm and he didn't even try to ask her to stand. Lifting her carefully into his arms he walked to the sofa and sat down, cradling her on his knee, her head still tucked against his shoulder.

As he settled her on his lap he enjoyed the weight of her pressing against his arousal. He allowed himself to embrace the aching need she engendered, enjoying the anticipation, the knowledge that she had somehow returned to him and he would be able to take his pleasure from her soon enough. He ran his thumb soothingly up and down her arm, whilst pressing gentle kisses against her hair. After a while her breathing evened and his heart ached with satisfaction that she felt safe enough with him to fall asleep in his arms. He never wanted to let her go again.

A short while later there was a knock at the door.

"Come."

Dembe appeared at his instruction and frowned a little at the scene in front of him. Red held a sleeping Liz in his arms on the couch, and Dembe noted that her robe was partially open, exposing the curve her breast. He averted his eyes to meet Red's steely gaze and watched as he kissed her forehead possessively.

"Well?" he enquired, his voice almost challenging.

"I have a message from Agent Ressler. The charges against Harold Cooper have been dropped, he will be released." he said quietly.

Red smiled broadly although it didn't quite seem to reach his eyes. "That is excellent news, thank you."

Dembe paused for a moment. "As you arranged, agent Ressler is preparing the documents for an immunity deal for Elizabeth. It will finalized tomorrow. I thought she would want to know as soon as possible."

Red's jaw tensed. He looked down at the woman asleep in his arms and then back to Dembe. "I think we'll let her rest. I'll tell her as soon as she wakes, she'll be so pleased."

Dembe nodded and closed the door behind him a little more loudly than was necessary, a grim look on his face. As the door banged shut Liz stirred in Red's arms, nuzzling his neck in a way that made him think that if only he could wake up to her warmth in his arms each day he would be truly happy. She looked up at him sleepily and he smiled softly, pretending for a moment that everything wasn't about to change. He shifted his knee slightly and she seemed to come to her senses.

"Oh God I'm sorry, how long have I been asleep on you? It must have been uncomfortable."

He wanted to tell her that having her in his arms was the most sublime experience he could imagine, that he didn't care if the feeling never returned to his limbs as long as it remained soaring in his heart the way it did when he held her.

"Not at all, Lizzie."

She smiled sheepishly and made to stand up, but he took her wrist gently and pulled her back down onto the sofa. It was too soon, and it was horrible, but to delay further would weigh too much on his already weary soul. She looked at him with questioning eyes.

"Lizzie, the time has come for us to discuss certain developments."

Her expression became apprehensive. "What's happened?"

"It's good news, Lizzie. Our scheme to expose the Cabal has snowballed somewhat with the help of our friends in the press, and their activities can no longer be ignored on Capitol Hill. Harold Cooper has been cleared of all charges."

Liz smiled widely. "That's amazing!"

Red paused and worked his jaw for a moment. "While you were being held at the detention facility Agent Ressler and I came to something of an understanding. I offered my services in exposing the cabal - specifically their networks within law enforcement – and he would attempt to negotiate an immunity deal for you. This afternoon I learned that his efforts have been successful." He watched as her eyes widened. "Make no mistake Lizzie, your old life as an agent is not a path that is available to you now. There will be conditions and the cabal has been crippled rather than destroyed. A threat remains. But you are free Lizzie, to make your own choices."

She sat beside him, frozen for a moment before sinking back into the sofa, drawing her arms around herself. "All the time, this is what you were doing. For me."

He remained silent other than to tilt his head slightly in confirmation.

She frowned suddenly. "What about what Ressler said? That you were replacing cabal members with your own people?"

Red shook his head uncomfortably. "Lizzie, when one simply removes a pest, ten more take its place. The only way to permanently quash the cabal's network was to ensure that there was no space for their members to thrive."

"So it was true" she said quietly.

"Agent Ressler's understanding is somewhat black and white. In my world one cannot leave a power vacuum. Lizzie I've never claimed to be selfless, but I'm not quite as Machiavellian as he would like you to think."

Liz ran her hands down her face in pained comprehension. "Since you came into my life nothing has been black and white. I think I finally understand what you meant about the harbor-master's daughter – that you can do things for others but there's always a selfish element."

She paused to look at him and noted the tightening in his jaw as she spoke. "That's not all you meant, is it?" she said slowly. "When you said nothing could make up for what you took from her. I always thought you were talking about me, but it didn't make sense – I killed my father, not you."

Red nodded slowly, his eyes dark and apprehensive.

She swiveled on the sofa to face him head on, her eyes suddenly sharp. "Red, is my mother alive?"

He swallowed. "No sweetheart, I've told you before. Your parents are dead."

Liz's heart began to thud in her chest and she felt sick. The pieces of their conversations, the hints, his burden of guilt – it all came flooding together in a horrible tapestry that once seen, she couldn't banish from her mind. Her mouth was so dry she could barely whisper the question she had to ask but she forced the words out of her mouth, unable to turn back.

"Did you kill my mother? Red. _Did you kill my mother?"_

She watched as his eyes widened fractionally, his chin crumpled with the tension in his face. It wasn't long before he answered her, and when he did it was like he'd smashed her into a thousand pieces.

"Yes."

TBC


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N Red and Liz deal with the aftermath of his revelation, leaving them both with difficult decisions to make. Warnings: Smangst (emphasis on the angst). This is very sad – please bear with me (and them) through this – I promise it will be worth it. As ever, not mine and reviews make my day!**

She sat frozen on the sofa for several long minutes, her hands shaking, and her eyes wide and unfocused. He watched her intently, scanning her face to gauge her reaction, whilst panic swelled like a tidal wave in his own chest. It was only then that he truly acknowledged to himself that he had never, ever intended to tell her, and would not have done had she not put everything together so quickly and asked him directly. But she had, and he couldn't lie to her. He watched helplessly as her face shut down in shock in front of him. He reached for her hand but she withdrew it sharply with a strangled sob and then she was scrambling up, stumbling towards the door.

He sprang up and grabbed her, spinning her round to face him. Her body was tense and she wouldn't look at him, remaining brittle and frozen in his grasp. His chest was painfully tight and he felt his own breath coming in shuddering gasps, his voice shaking.

"Lizzie, let me explain-"

She closed her eyes and shook her head, her whole body shaking now, her breathing labored.

"Sweetheart you need to calm down and breathe-"

She let out another sob, a terrible keening wail and tried weakly to pull back from him.

His stomach turned to iron. He was losing control of the situation, something he never allowed himself to do – he couldn't afford to. When he spoke again the tremor in his voice had vanished, his tone now firm and commanding.

"Elizabeth look at me."

When she didn't comply he took her jaw between his fingers and thumb and lifted her face, forcing her to meet his eye.

"You asked me a question and you _will not_ walk away from me before I have answered you properly. Do I make myself clear?"

She swallowed and inclined her head fractionally. He nodded and released her then, loathing the terror he'd seen when she'd finally looked at him.

"Good. Now sit down and take some deep breaths."

She seemed frozen to the spot and so he placed a hand on the back of her neck and steered her gently back to the sofa where she sat down, her gaze now fixed on him apprehensively.

In the midst of her fog of fear and heartbreak she expected him to launch straight into a justification of his actions, justification which in his warped, egotistic mind he would expect her to accept. She was surprised when he poured a glass of water from a decanter on the table and handed it to her. She accepted it wordlessly and took a sip, the cool liquid soothing her dry mouth.

He picked up a dining chair and placed it in front of the sofa, opting to sit opposite her rather than at her side. When he spoke again his voice was gentle, and tinged with emotion.

"Lizzie, I think you know by now that I was the friend who took you to Sam after the fire and asked him to care for you."

She nodded slowly.

"I explained to him that your father had died. He was concerned that you had a mother who might come looking for you, and I told him the truth - that your mother had disappeared that night and I never expected to see her again." He paused, his lip trembling a little. "That your mother had left you." He dropped his head. "I never, _ever_ wanted to tell you this Lizzie."

Liz stared at him from the sofa, her eyes bright and fiery. "Keep talking" she said suddenly, her voice quiet and hard. "Tell me what you did!"

Red swallowed. "I was young and inexperienced - new to naval intelligence. When Katerina Rostova approached me prepared to divulge Russian secrets it was a coup for me. Until that point she had been the stuff of myth. I had no idea that this… _alliance_ would change my life forever. That it would bind me inextricably to a child who, at that point, I didn't even know existed. Weeks after the fire she contacted me. After she learned that I had survived she suspected that I had taken you. She wanted you back."

As Liz listened she couldn't stop her hands shaking. "But you didn't give me back" she whispered. "You kept me from her."

She watched as Red's face fell, the creases around his eyes deepening. His voice was filled with sorrow. "I had been betrayed…they took everything from me. By that point I was trapped in the web of a devastating conspiracy and my only hope was a blackmail file detailing their activities. I wanted to use fulcrum to expose them, but the night of the fire Katerina tried to persuade me to return it to them. I realized I had been played from the start. It was no coincidence that she had reached out to me. So yes, I kept you from her. I went to meet with her at an old safe house, with a trusted colleague. It was a trap. We were ambushed by her and her people."

Liz frowned in confusion. "A trap? I don't understand. She wanted me…"

Red sighed, his expression anguished. "She wanted the fulcrum, Lizzie. When they realized that you and the fulcrum were gone they fired at us. My colleague was killed. And I…" Red shook his head, unable to meet her eye.

"You shot my mother."

Red nodded, his hand covering his eyes. "I tried, Lizzie. To save her. She was your mother. She had answers I desperately needed. But I couldn't."

He exhaled loudly and a heavy silence followed.

"Weakness and shame…" It was so quiet he barely heard her. He raised his head to look at her, his eyes red-rimmed.

"Lizzie?"

"You killed her and you told me she died of _weakness and shame_. You're not just a monster" she breathed. "You're _inhuman._ "

His cheeks colored at her words and his eyes seemed to grow darker. "You have every right to be angry. I don't deserve anything else from you. But as for what I told you…At just four years old you had more _courage_ and _strength_ than Katerina Rostova" he said scathingly. "You protected her from her brute husband, while Katerina ran and left you – _a little girl_ – to die in a burning house. When she learned you had survived she tried to use you to get the fulcrum. I cannot begin to fathom the shame in that."

Before he had finished speaking Liz was on her feet and coming at him, her face now wet with silent tears and contorted with grief. She slapped him as hard as she could, the palm of her hand and its scar that served as a dreadful reminder of that night colliding with his cheek with stinging force. He remained seated and didn't move a muscle to stop her. Sobbing, she slapped him again, and he didn't respond other than to close his eyes against the impact.

"Stand up" she choked. "Stand up!"

He did as she asked and rose slowly to his feet in front of her, readying himself for whatever punishment she felt fit to deliver. She leant forward and he braced himself for her to punch him, or spit in his face. He was shocked to the core when she pressed her mouth to his, her lips trembling.

"Lizzie what are you doing?" His voice was raw.

She said nothing and silenced him with another kiss, fiercer this time, her teeth sinking into his lip hard enough to draw blood. He grasped her shoulders to hold her back and licked the blood from his lip. Her eyes were dark and wet, while a metallic taste swirled in his mouth. His earlier arousal returned with a vengeance, now a wretched and unwelcome feeling under the circumstances. Desperate to conceal it from her he took a step back, but she moved with him, pressing her body against his while her delicate hands tore at his suit jacket. She pushed it down his arms to the floor and started fumbling with his tie, all the while trying to breathe through shuddering sobs.

He understood then; much as she wanted to hurt him, she wanted to hurt herself more and she wanted to use him to do it. He understood too well how pain makes people self-destruct, but he wouldn't be the instrument of her undoing, not now. Shaken, he took hold of her wrists as gently as he could. "Stop sweetheart. Trust me you don't want it like this. This isn't what you want."

Enraged by his words – his rejection - she wrenched out of his grasp, struggling and clawing at his face like a wild animal. "What I _want_?" she screamed. "What I want is for none of this ever to have happened!"

She paused, shaking when she saw blood well to the surface in the lines left by her nails on his cheek. Instinctively she stepped back, expecting him to strike her, to defend himself, but he remained still. After a moment he removed a white cotton handkerchief from his vest pocket and held it to his face, his eyes wide and glassy.

When she spoke again her voice was quiet, but he took in every word like a brand on his poor, corrupt soul. "I've spent my life profiling criminals. Some of the worst people there are. People who hurt me. Who terrified me. I've been betrayed, deceived and used by my own husband for years. But I have never _hated_ anyone as much as I do you."

He watched, frozen as she turned and fled from the room. Finally he sat down heavily in a chair, and after a while removed the handkerchief from his cheek to inspect it. The white cotton weave was neatly patterned with deep red lines, so uniform it was almost as though it had been designed that way. He couldn't have expected her to react in any other way. He deserved worse.

He thought numbly that she couldn't be left alone this way. He decided to seek out Clara, to instruct her to go to her, to try and alleviate her pain somehow, although if there was a way to eliminate the kind of pain she was feeling he had yet to discover it. Then he remembered that Dembe had helped her with her therapy in the garden that afternoon, that Clara was no longer needed full-time _._ He couldn't ask Dembe to go to her. He was too ashamed, and deep down he knew that it wasn't what she needed. Dabbing the handkerchief against his face one more time, he took a deep breath and made for the stairs.

He opened her bedroom door slowly and saw her on the bed, her body curled in a ball of grief and dwarfed by the imposing four-poster on which she lay. He closed the door and she sat up, her face red and raw from crying. They looked at one another in silence for a moment, and then Liz raised her hands to her face to wipe her eyes.

"I don't hate you" she said finally.

"You should."

She sighed in defeat. "For what? For defending yourself? For saving my life? You've saved me more times than I can count." She shook her head. "It's easier to hate you than admit the truth. Of who my parents were. That they cared more about a _thing_ \- the fulcrum - than me. That I wasn't important" she choked.

Red frowned and shook his head. "You were important, Lizzie. You are everything." He paused before speaking again, his face as open as she had ever seen it. "That night was an extraordinary turning point in both our lives. We had both lost so much, yet we both survived." His voice shook and he looked away from her for a moment. "What I came to feel for you… I had no right. Perhaps if I had been able to care for you myself all those years ago I would love you now as Sam did. As a f-"

"Don't" she cut him off sharply.

He watched as she put her hand on the bed, a silent invitation. He went to sit beside her and she raised her hand gently to the welts on his cheek. She leant forward and placed a gentle kiss there before moving to his mouth. She kissed him and it was sweet, and tender and heart-breaking. It felt like forgiveness and he realized with sickening clarity that he didn't want it; the thing he'd craved for twenty-seven years was now within his grasp and he couldn't accept it. He was a monster, and the only way he knew how to be with her was as a libertine, her deceiver - her captor.

When she crawled into his lap and allowed her crimson robe to fall from her shoulders, the material as red as the blood on his cheek, part of him wanted to stop her, terrified of what it might mean. Instead, he shed his many layers as she demanded and prepared himself to receive the gift of which he was so undeserving. He laid her fragile body down as gently as a freshly-cut rose and made love to her with all that he was, each stroke a hopeless prayer for transformation into someone worthy of her. She clung to him desperately with her arms about his neck and he felt her tears wet his shoulder as their bodies rocked together towards an inevitable and devastating completion. When they finally shattered in one another's embrace he heard the words he dreaded, barely a whisper in his ear - "I forgive you."

~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~

The next morning he armored himself in his customary three piece - a dove gray wool-silk blend – and busied himself in the library of the house, waiting for the moment she would come to him. He looked up when the door opened and she was there, dressed, with a small carryall in her hand. He leant back against the desk.

"You're leaving."

He watched numbly as her teeth sank into her lower lip.

"Please understand. You know I have to. After everything that's happened… Now that I have immunity I need to build a new life for myself, a new identity. I need to do it for myself, Red."

He stared at her, his mind racing. When he didn't respond she walked over to him and his hand closed around the desk drawer behind him, a drawer in which he had placed a syringe filled with a sedative earlier that morning. When she reached him he saw tears glistening in her eyes. She offered him the most beautiful smile before leaning up to kiss his cheek. "Thank you" she whispered. "Thank you for everything." He stood there, paralyzed as she retreated again, turning to look at him once more before closing the door behind her.

 _No_ he wanted to scream. _Don't thank me, sweetheart – show me that fire, that anger. Don't forgive me. Don't let me go._ He thought again of forcing her to stay – that was something the monster understood. There were many ways it could be achieved. It may not even be necessary to physically subdue her, he thought. She needed time to adjust to what she had learned about that night, to be able to ask him questions that he would answer gladly if it gave him the opportunity to help her to know herself - and him – better.

There were also other considerations. She was still weak. He couldn't reasonably allow her to leave when she could still be a target for displaced, vengeful cabal members. It wouldn't have to be violent at all – he could be gentle. He could convince her it was best for her, that _he_ was best for her. No one could possibly love her more deeply or completely than he. He could look after her properly, help her get stronger and then teach her so many things – languages, French cooking, martial arts…some parts of his business enterprises. He wouldn't touch her again until she was ready. He would never force her.

He raised his hand to his mouth, horrified at himself and the thoughts she engendered. It would have been so easy. She had been right there, kissing his cheek, tender and unsuspecting. It would have taken less than ten seconds to pin her down on the desk and administer the drug, and in those ten seconds he would have sealed both of their fates and damned himself forever.

The door opened and he looked up sharply to see Dembe enter the room. The bodyguard stopped in his tracks as his eyes settled on the deep scratch marks on Red's face, unmistakably from fingernails. He'd seen marks like that before. He'd made marks like that before, in another life. Seeing his expression, Red raised his hand to his cheek. "It's not what you think. I told her the truth."

Dembe nodded and spoke quietly. "Elizabeth has asked me to take her to the airport. I would like to help her."

Red stared at him.

"You must let her go now" Dembe continued softly.

Red shook his head, his expression bleak. "I don't think I can do that."

Dembe nodded gently. "You can, my friend. For her, you can. And I shall pray that her heart returns to you."

At that Red took a shallow, shuddering breath and brought his hand to his chest with a grunt.

"Raymond! Your chest-"

Red shook his head and lowered his hand. "Go. Take her where she wants to go."

"You are not well-"

Red looked up, his eyes like fire. "I said go!" He took a few deeper breaths and his voice softened. "I'm fine. Make sure she has everything she needs – money, accommodation… everything she needs Dembe. Take care of it." Dembe nodded, his eyes filled with sadness and respect, but Red had already turned away. He waited until Dembe had left before he allowed a single, gruff sob to be torn from his throat.

TBC


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N Liz attempts to move on with her life, but finds herself unable to let go of the past. Forgiveness is a complicated, but rewarding path. I hope you are enjoying this fic as much as I am writing this story of sin and redemption. I love reviews like Cameron loves pigs. Disclaimed (including the bit about Cameron :-)**

 ** _Two years have passed_**

Annabelle Lasseter sat across the dining table from a charismatic young man, fiddling with her napkin ring while he jokingly imparted a story about the difficulties of brokering sales on behalf of tempestuous artists. She tried to focus – it was genuinely funny after all, and he… well he was undeniably attractive. He was roughly her age, but his blond hair and slightly cherubic features made him appear younger. She looked up and smiled apologetically when she realised he had stopped talking. He reached for her hand, turning her palm up and exposing the intricate scar that stretched from her wrist. He avoided touching it.

"Annie? Are you alright? You seem miles away – a guy could get insecure."

"Sorry, yes I'm fine – it's been a tough week, that's all. And it's just Annabelle. I've never been one for nicknames."

At least not now, she thought. She'd been just Annabelle for two years now. It still sounded wrong. Annabelle Lasseter was a clinical psychologist who had given up her practice to teach at a small liberal arts college in Virginia. Her students loved her, both for the insight she brought to her classes and the guidance she offered those who approached her with personal problems. Her colleagues found her pleasant enough but distant, with an abrasive edge that precluded her forming any real bonds at her place of work.

This, she concluded, was probably for the best. It would be so easy to slip up if she let anyone in; how Tom had managed to take on identity after identity and live each one to the full she would never fully comprehend. And yet here she was, wearing a scoop neck black satin dress on a second date with Simon, a man she'd met at a local gallery and who had pursued her despite her initial recalcitrance. Elizabeth Keen struggled to let go of her past, nursing an ache inside her that she feared might never heal. But Annabelle Lasseter… she was lonely. She deserved a life.

She concentrated on the man in front of her, trying to feel the warmth of his smile.

"Well _Annabelle_ , it seems you might be in need of a holiday. I know how stressful a career in teaching can be."

"I guess it is a little overwhelming sometimes _." But compared to being shot, tied up, infected with a deadly virus and framed for murder… it's a beach_ , she thought wryly. She still felt a little vulnerable without her service weapon pressing reassuringly into her side. It was one of the conditions of her immunity deal and new identity – she would never again be permitted to possess a firearm.

Simon nodded sympathetically. "Have you ever been to Canada? The western provinces? It's a place of true beauty, and by far the most relaxing environment I can think of. Perhaps I could take you there sometime."

She felt sick as she recalled the lake house, the scent of pine and charcoal as visceral in her memory as if it had happened yesterday. The ice cold of the water, his arms around her, his breath, his voice…

"No. I mean I have, I just… it wasn't for a holiday. I'd prefer somewhere warmer."

After that their conversation flowed easily enough, but she was grateful when the cheque came and he ushered her to his car to drive her home. When they arrived he walked up the path with her and she did her best to smile at him as they reached her front door.

"Simon, thank you for taking me home. I'm sorry I haven't been the best company tonight."

He smiled at her boyishly and shrugged. "The night's still young."

She felt a blush creep into her cheeks. She'd been on very few dates over the past two years. Only once had she invited a man into her bedroom. She had cried afterwards in the privacy of her bathroom, and ignored the polite messages he left on her machine the following week.

"I'm afraid I'm really tired tonight. Perhaps we can do this again another time?" She reached into her purse for her keys as she spoke, suddenly desperate to be alone. She opened her front door and turned to say goodnight. She jumped when she found him right behind her, and then his hand gripped her arm, his expression full of contempt.

"So that's it, huh? You string me along in a slutty dress and then you can't get away fast enough? No one likes a tease, Annabelle."

Shocked, she shoved him backwards, but not even his sudden change in demeanour prepared her for his response. He backhanded her hard across her cheek, knocking her down against the table in the hall.

"Bitch" he spat, crouching over her and gripping her hair. "Maybe I should teach you some manners."

Disoriented, she instinctively scrabbled behind her for a weapon she realised wasn't there. Just as he raised his fist again a shadow appeared in the doorway, and the next thing she knew he was being dragged off her, swearing. She looked up in disbelief and saw him pinned against the doorframe, a gun barrel jammed into his temple. She tried to focus on the owner of the gun.

It was Dembe. She watched in amazement as the scene unfolded in front of her, satisfied to note that Simon was now a snivelling wreck. Dembe regarded him calmly, his muscular arm immobilising her assailant with ease.

"If you ever come near her again - if you ever treat another woman in this way - I will come for you. Do you understand." It was more of a statement than a question.

Simon nodded and hissed out a "yes" before Dembe released him. They watched in silence as he ran down the driveway to his car and sped away. Dembe turned to her and offered his hand, helping her up.

"I don't know what to say" she managed finally. "Thank you."

"You are welcome, Elizabeth."

She smiled at the sound of her name. No one had called her that in two years.

"So he's having you watch me, then" she ventured cautiously. "I must be losing my edge. I've never noticed."

Dembe paused. "No. There is no one watching. On the day that you left, Raymond charged me with ensuring you had what you needed. Since then I have passed through occasionally to see that you are well. Tonight was one such night. I hope it is not an imposition."

She laughed softly. "Well, tonight at least I am very grateful you were here. It's good to see you. To see someone who knows who I really am."

He nodded in quiet understanding.

"Would you like to come in? I have some beer in the fridge."

"I do not wish to disturb you."

"Nonsense, I'm glad you're here. Please stay."

Dembe smiled then. "I would like that."

Once they were settled in the living room, beers in hand, she looked at him, wondering what his life had been like in the past two years. More than anything she wanted to ask about his employer, his friend… the man who haunted her dreams. He hadn't offered her any news of Red. Perhaps he wouldn't want to tell her anything. Perhaps she had no right to ask.

"So… he doesn't know you're here then," she tried.

Dembe remained silent and a sudden fear gripped her stomach like ice.

"Dembe" she whispered. "He's not… he's not dead, is he? Tell me he isn't dead!"

He regarded her solemnly. "No, Elizabeth, he is not dead."

She felt the knot in her stomach lessen. "Good. That's good. It's just… he leads such a dangerous life. I still remember the day he was shot."

"As do I."

She looked away for a moment, suddenly overwhelmed with guilt. It had occurred to her before that Dembe might blame her for that, though if he did he had never indicated as much.

"I guess agent Ressler is still on his tail then. The elusive concierge of crime." She smiled sadly.

Dembe leaned forward a little and clasped his hands together. "Officially, yes. Unofficially, I believe the FBI has little interest in Raymond at the moment."

She looked at him questioningly. "Why's that? What are you not telling me?"

Dembe's expression remained stoic, his knack for deflection rivalling that of his employer. "Do you remember the organisation of Floriana Campo?"

"Yes, of course – it was a front for people trafficking."

He nodded evenly. "And Geoff Perl. His wildlife protection fund."

"Another corrupt charity."

"Over the years Raymond has encountered several charitable ventures which are fronts for organised trafficking , poaching and smuggling. He has taken an interest in reinstating the organisations for their rightful purpose, although he cannot involve himself much personally now", he said carefully. "I myself am proud to oversee one such organisation in my home country of Sierra Leone."

 _Raymond Reddington, philanthropist. Well there's a turn up for the books_ , she thought, her mind racing.

"I'm pleased for you, Dembe" she smiled. "I really am. But I doubt his motives are as pure as yours. What's in it for him? He always had an angle."

He looked at her solemnly. "Forgiveness, Elizabeth."

"Forgiveness?" she echoed.

"I believe it is what he seeks. It is what he has always wanted for as long as I have known him." Dembe regarded her earnestly.

"Do you mean forgiveness from me? Because I _have_ forgiven him Dembe. He knows that."

"And I believe that has brought him comfort" he said kindly, "but that is not what I meant. He needs to be able to forgive himself. That is a longer and more difficult journey."

She stared at him numbly, her mouth suddenly dry. She licked her lips nervously.

"Dembe, how is he? How is he really?" She could no longer ignore the ache in her chest when she thought of him; feelings she thought she had long since buried rushed to the surface like blood in a healing wound torn open afresh.

He looked away from her for a moment and then looked back and responded with a question she didn't expect.

"Elizabeth, are you happy?"

She blinked. "Well I haven't been shot at in two years. That counts for something."

"No," he said thoughtfully "but you have been attacked."

She grimaced. "I forget that life can be dangerous for ordinary people. He looked so harmless. Almost angelic. I should have been on my guard."

Dembe nodded. "It isn't always clear. Some wolves wear sheep's clothing…others are capable of great love."

She felt her stomach churn again, and then a swell of anger rising inside. "You're too much like him, you know. I won't be manipulated. I'm glad you're doing well, but so am I. I've moved on."

If he was affected by her outburst he didn't show it. He merely nodded and rose to his feet.

"I will not inconvenience you further. Keep well, Elizabeth."

She nodded and waited until she heard the front door close before she allowed the tears to fall. Eventually, she hauled herself up from the sofa and made for the stairs, where something on the table in the hall caught her eye. It was a plain business card with a hand written address on the front.

 _Damn him._

She paused and then continued up the stairs to her bedroom. Red had moved on, and she had to do the same. She lay on her bed and stared around the room, her profiler's brain working on overdrive. There were no photographs of family, or friends. No pictures. A generic yellow color scheme that she didn't even like. This room belonged to someone in limbo. Someone with no roots. Either that, or someone bereft. Someone who didn't have a past, or a passion…or a future.

She threw on some jeans and a shirt, before grabbing an overnight bag and shoving in a change of clothes and a washbag. Slinging the bag over her shoulder she went back downstairs and picked up the card on her way out of the door. The address seemed familiar _. Oh. The writer's house. Back where it all started_ , she thought.

As she drove her hands shook on the wheel. What was she thinking? She'd arrive late at night, even if she drove straight. She had no idea what to say to him, or what she wanted, or if he'd even be there now. As she neared a gas station she considered turning round. Instead, she found herself putting her foot to the floor.

It was well past one am when she pulled into the grounds of the house. Even in the dark the twisted trees that arched over the front windows triggered memories that made her ache inside. _I don't even know why I'm here._ As she stood in front of the door she paused. There were lights on, but no sounds or movement. It suddenly occurred to her that he may have company. Raymond Reddington was not a man who would want for female companionship. She'd be a fool to think he hadn't slept with a hundred women since she left. Perhaps there was even someone special, she thought with a pang. An unwelcome image came to her of Madeline Pratt and her sophisticated clothes and long, blonde locks.

She steeled herself and knocked on the door once and then again. No answer. She looked back towards her car and stood numbly in the cold, wondering what to do, when the door opened behind her. She turned back and was met with the beady gaze of Mr Kaplan. She heard the sound of the safety being replaced on a gun and smiled in spite of herself. Another familiar face. Another link to him.

If Mr Kaplan was surprised to see her she didn't show it. She looked her up and down, her eyes flitting from her face to her overnight bag. "You'd better come in, dearie."

They paused at the entrance to the old living room, the place where she'd seen him years ago, the light glinting through the trees and playing off his handsome features and golden eyelashes. Mr Kaplan took her bag and gestured towards the door of the sitting room.

"He's in there" she said, unceremoniously. "But I don't know what humor he'll be in to receive you just now."

With that, Mr Kaplan withdrew to the kitchen and Liz opened the living room door, her heart thumping in her chest. When she entered she saw him slumped in an armchair by the window. He had lost weight, his skin was sallow and his shirt was crumpled, the top buttons undone. His customary vest was absent and silvery stubble dotted his face. The room was musty, as though he had been smoking cigars in there, and she caught the acrid aroma of stale alcohol. She took in the empty bottle of scotch on the table beside him, a tumbler nestled under his fingers in the chair. The chaise on which they had sat together years ago was now piled high with papers and files, yellowed by cigar smoke and coated in dust. Several of the files had scratched and faded photographs attached, each of young girls, their faces bruised and bloodied. She swallowed.

"Red? It's me. Can I come in?"

He turned his head slowly towards her and squinted a moment. He passed his hand over his face before turning back to the window. She waited for him to respond but there was nothing. She watched as he raised the tumbler to his lips.

"Red, for God's sake. Look at me!"

He turned back to her, his head whipping round this time, and she realised painfully that the first time she had spoken he hadn't known or believed she was there. He was looking directly at her now with the same penetrating gaze she remembered.

"Lizzie." For a moment her heart sang at the deep rumble of his voice, at finally hearing him say her name again. He dropped his head for a moment, and when he looked back at her his face was blank, his mouth set in a thin line.

"Not really the best time for me, sweetheart."

TBC


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N Liz and Red and have a difficult reunion, and Liz makes a discovery that fills her with guilt. Angsty, with a side of ill/nasty Red. Thoroughly disclaimed. I eat reviews for breakfast, they keep me going :-)**

 _Previously: "Not really the best time for me, sweetheart."_

Liz's face hardened. Whatever she had expected, it wasn't this.

"I don't give a rat's ass. I've come a long way."

He nodded and took another sip of his drink. "Yes. All the way from Virginia." His voice was even deeper than she remembered, and now underscored by a low rasp.

"So you do know where I live." She was ashamed to admit she was glad that he had kept tabs on her. Their last meeting seemed so final and he hadn't contacted her since, so she assumed that he had moved on. It was easier that way. Now she wondered how much he knew about her life, her teaching, whether he knew about the dates she'd been on, or worse, the man she had brushed off after a miserable one night stand.

He wiped his hand over his eyes, his brow creased and weary. "I do. And I suggest you return there. You shouldn't be here, Elizabeth."

It stung, badly, and try as she might she couldn't stop tears welling up. She bit her lip to staunch the sob building painfully in her throat and walked hesitantly towards him. He had barely looked at her; she needed him to do that, to acknowledge her properly, even if it was to confirm that he didn't want to see her. That coming here was a mistake. That he no longer cared. As she stepped towards the chair in which he sat she was illuminated by the soft light of the reading lamp that cast a warm glow around him. He frowned as he observed her face, showing some semblance of feeling for the first time.

"Your cheek…" he murmured, and she suddenly remembered the blow to her face delivered by her asshole date that evening. It felt like days ago already, but there was no doubt that an impressive bruise was forming there.

She raised her hand to her face, self-consciously. "A bad date. Dembe was kind enough to help me out of a tough spot."

She saw his eye twitch fractionally, his knuckles whitening as he gripped the arm of the chair, but then he looked away from her again. "Dembe. I should have known he was involved in bringing you here."

She wanted to scream, the pain of this appalling reunion swirling like poison in her gut. "I came here by myself" she snapped. "It was my decision and frankly I'm regretting it."

She watched as his lip curled cruelly. He began to respond but was taken with a rumbling coughing fit. She moved quickly to his side and put her hand on his shoulder.

"Are you ok? What can I do?"

"It's nothing. Leave me!"

"Red-" she began, but didn't finish because he had delivered a stinging slap to her arm. Gasping, she withdrew her hand from his shoulder sharply. He had hurt her before – worse than this - but as long as she had known him his actions had been calm, calculated and done – to his mind – with the intention of protecting her. The one time they weren't, he had been asleep in the grips of a powerful nightmare, and the events of that night had affected him deeply. He had never once lashed out in anger or frustration, even under the most trying circumstances.

She stepped back, her hands shaking. "I'll get you some water."

"That won't be necessary-" she heard him say gruffly, but she was already leaving the room. She needed a moment away from him. She needed answers.

She found Mr Kaplan in the kitchen. The woman watched her expectantly as she took a glass from the sideboard and poured the water.

Liz paused for a moment. "That cough – he says it's nothing, but it sounds bad to me."

Mr Kaplan nodded briskly. "He's a proud man, Elizabeth."

She felt a chill go through her. "He looks terrible. What's wrong with him?"

"His lungs are in a bad way. He didn't tell me the details, but as I understand it when you two were in Canada he ended up with a lung full of freezing lake water – that's bad news when you're recovering from a gunshot wound to the chest. I don't suppose you can shed any light on what happened?"

Liz's face was ashen. That terrible day in the lake. He'd saved her. It had never occurred to her the risk he had taken because of her. Her insides seized with guilt, and she suddenly felt childish, as if she had never properly understood what he had done for her and what she meant to him. In her grief, it had been beyond her. She shook her head numbly, too ashamed to tell the stern older woman the truth. She tried to keep the horror out of her voice when she responded. "Will he get better? Is there anything that can be done?"

"He'll never be quite as he was but he could certainly improve. There are steroids that would be an enormous benefit, combined with breathing exercises… Those damn cigars don't help. I have a doctor who I'm sure could do a lot for him. But Raymond is as stubborn as an ox. And, I'm afraid to say, very unhappy." She paused and fixed Liz with beady stare. "I don't mean to be blunt dearie, but are you staying?"

Liz regarded her for a moment. "I don't know" she answered honestly. "I'd like to stay tonight if that's ok. The drive was longer than I thought it would be. And… I haven't really been able to talk to him yet."

Mr Kaplan nodded briskly. "You'll have better luck with him in the morning. I've put your bag in your room – second on the left."

Liz felt an aching tiredness creep into her. She held up the water, her voice shaking slightly. "I should take this to him first."

"No, let me. I think it's safer for you to leave him be for tonight." Mr Kaplan's tone was matter-of-fact, but Liz felt a chill of fear spark inside her nonetheless. What did she mean? That she thought he would hurt her? Had she heard him slap her hand away? The fear inside her grew, this time not fear for herself, but fear that the man he was – that stoical, protective, measured and above all loving man – might be gone.

She nodded numbly and handed Mr Kaplan the water glass.

"Go upstairs now dearie. I'll get him to bed. Tomorrow's a new day" she added, and Liz thought she heard a hint of a sigh in the woman's usually brisk tone.

Liz flopped on the bed and closed her eyes, expecting sleep to claim her in seconds. Yet much as her body ached with exhaustion, her mind swirled and pricked at her relentlessly. After a while she crept into the corridor, following the sounds of harsh breathing. She pushed open his door and saw him asleep on the bed, still dressed apart from his shoes, and curled up almost like a little boy. Trembling, she took a blanket from the bottom of the bed and pulled it gently over him. After that she settled in a chair in the corner of his room and finally allowed sleep to come.

~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~

When she woke she was curled in the chair, her limbs stiff and painful. She was warm though, and as the fog of sleep dissipated she realised that she had been covered – someone had placed a blanket over her in the night. She looked up and started slightly when she met his gaze. He was sitting up in bed, his eyes fixed on her, wide and green and intense as ever. How long had he been watching her sleep?

"Hey" she said, her voice groggy.

He worked his jaw for a moment and then shook his head, as though disappointed. "You shouldn't be here Lizzie."

"You tried that yesterday. It's gonna take more than that to get rid of me" she said, trying for a light-hearted tone.

He grimaced at her words, his teeth bearing down on the inside of his cheek. "In that case, perhaps you will allow me the courtesy of some privacy to wash up and dress."

His tone was icy, but Liz had steeled herself after their horrid exchange the night before. She wasn't going to let him push her away that easily. He had to give her a chance to make things right. "Sure – I'll make us some breakfast. See you in the kitchen." She heard him begin to protest but ignored him and left the room.

It was an hour before he emerged and the bacon she had prepared was rubbery and cold. The coffee was still good though. She sat numbly in the kitchen with her hands around the mug. Mr Kaplan was nowhere to be seen, and Liz wondered if she was staying with him at the moment or whether she was just visiting. Exactly how sick was he? She ran an appraising eye over him as he entered the kitchen. He had clearly made some effort; he had shaved and showered, washing away the acrid smell of booze, smoke and sweat, and he had donned one of his customary three-pieces. She noted, though, that the suit was a little ill-fitting, hanging from his now smaller frame. It frightened her almost as much as his appearance last night. Raymond Reddington's suits had never been anything other than tailored to perfection.

"Breakfast is cold, but the coffee's ok." She poured him a cup which he accepted wordlessly, his eyes still fixed on her reprovingly.

When he eventually spoke he sounded tired and resigned. "Why are you here, Lizzie?"

It was a good question, but one to which she didn't have an answer. She hadn't planned this. She had packed a bag and leapt into her car without a second thought, running on instinct and a deep pull inside her that, once supressed, had now raged to the surface. She looked up at him, her gaze open and clear. "Do you really want me to go?"

"As I recall I've never had much success in my attempts to instruct you" he said carefully.

Liz smiled at that. He hadn't thrown her out, after all. He hadn't smiled back either though. "Sit with me?" she asked, trying to maintain an air of calmness she didn't feel.

He shifted his weight in a manner that was almost nervous before closing a large hand around a chair and taking a seat at the table. Despite his apparent discomfort, Liz felt suddenly intimidated, as though she was sitting across from her school principal. She was invading his life – his privacy – without invitation. Worse, she was the cause of his illness. She wondered painfully if he blamed her for it, if that was why his behaviour towards her was so cold. He seemed to detect a crack in her confident façade and exploited it quietly but determinedly as only he could, drawing himself up imposingly and clasping his hands in front of him on the table.

"So Lizzie, tell me, what you have done with your freedom? Are you a famous criminalist? A therapist to the rich and powerful? Do you have a strapping young husband devoted to fulfilling your every whim?"

Although his tone was jovial, Liz knew that his words were intended to sting and she looked down, hurt and shame bleeding color into her cheeks. "You know that none of those things are true" she responded after a moment. "There's no need to be cruel."

He feigned surprise. "I merely asked what your life has become – is that cruel?"

"It is when you already know the answer. I teach psychology at a small liberal arts college and I enjoy it. I'm not married." She lifted her hand to her cheek and winced as her fingers pressed into the bruised flesh. "I was seeing someone but it ended rather abruptly when he couldn't take no for an answer and Dembe held a gun to his head."

"Did he pull the trigger?"

"No!" Liz looked shocked, Red's nonchalant tone giving away nothing of whether he was serious, or whether he even cared that she had been hurt.

"Pity" he shrugged.

She shook her head in exasperation, drawing her arms around herself defensively. "Anyway, that's my life. I'm sure you're perfectly aware of all that, so I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't taunt me."

His expression softened a little. "I confess I gathered from our conversation last night that there was no devoted husband. But as for the rest, apart from the fact that you landed in Virginia, I am genuinely in the dark Lizzie. Watching you now would be…" he paused and she cut in bitterly.

"It would be a waste of your time and resources I guess, now the cabal has gone."

He frowned, chewing the inside of his cheek. "I was going to say it would be too painful" he conceded. "And you deserve space to carve out your own life."

"Oh." She shifted in her seat. The silence was unbearable – she couldn't ask any of the questions that gnawed at her about whether he blamed her, or whether he still cared for her. Too afraid of the answers, she squirmed miserably and changed the subject. "It sounds like you've been doing some amazing things. Dembe told me about the charities you work with. About what he's been doing in Sierra Leone. I'm glad he's happy."

Her enquiry was a little stunted and lacklustre but for the first time since she arrived, Red smiled in genuine pleasure. "Ahhhh, he's been magnificent Lizzie. Changed so many lives for the better. Did he tell you that in the past year alone his organisation has rescued over two hundred trafficked girls and boys along the West African coast? Children who were living in _horrifying_ conditions, bought and sold like cattle to be used for sex and slave labor." Red shook his head. "Those children now have loving homes. They're receiving a decent education. They have a future. Dembe has worked tirelessly to make that happen. I'm proud of him" he said, his eyes shining a little.

Liz raised her eyebrows. "You talk as if you had nothing to do with this. As I understand it you've spent the last two years rebuilding these organisations from the ground up and engineering their operations – you must have saved hundreds of lives. I'm proud of _you_ " she said, smiling softly.

She was disappointed to see his previously animated face stiffen again. He looked away from her when he spoke, his voice dismissive. "I'm a wealthy man, Lizzie – bankrolling a few charitable endeavours is hardly worthy of your admiration." His voice caught in his throat as he spoke, eliciting another deep cough.

She opened her mouth to protest at how far he had downplayed his role, but he cut her off by rising abruptly from the table. "You'll have to excuse me my dear, I need to rest. I tire rather easily these days."

She bit her lip and nodded, still unable to conceive of a Raymond Reddington who was not strong and powerful. Even when he had been shot and she'd been terrified of how vulnerable he looked covered in blood, he had recovered remarkably quickly, exuding confidence and power every step of the way. Now he looked smaller and somehow defeated, his confident and jovial manner replaced with a brooding affect and a terseness she had seldom heard from him in the past. She wondered numbly if that was it, if he expected her to leave now, but as he made his way from the kitchen he turned back to her.

"I can arrange for anything you require to be delivered, or if you prefer I can send someone to your house to pick up some things for you. I suggest you sleep in your room tonight – I can't imagine my chair was particularly comfortable."

He left the room before she had a chance to respond, but it was enough. Her lips curved into a small smile - he wanted her to stay.

TBC


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N Red and Liz seem to find some equilibrium, but unspoken feelings bubble under the surface, leading to a devastating explosion. A.N.G.S.T. Warning, includes a sexual assault scene. Utterly disclaimed. Please review, your comments mean the world to me!**

Despite their difficult reunion, they managed to fall into a routine which, while stilted and awkward at first, seemed to hold. He assured her that the writer's house was a secure base for him to remain at least for now, and so she began to settle in, appreciating the house's comforting, lived-in antique feel and the way the twisty trees cloaked the garden like a miniature enchanted forest. She began each morning by making them breakfast, and after remaining taciturn for three days or so he began to rise earlier, meeting her in the kitchen and venturing gentle suggestions as to how the eggs could be improved or to reminisce about the Austrian bakeries he had visited. In exchange she told him select pieces of information about her life, focusing mostly on her teaching, her favorite students and famous criminal profiles with which Red was often already familiar – _"_ _Lizzie, the man killed over thirty people and I swear come hell or high water he still took his elderly mother out for Sunday lunch every week!"_

Mostly, they talked about his work. She had loved the sparkle that came to his eyes on her first day there when she had asked about Sierra Leone and she indulged herself by asking more questions, hoping to see that gleam in his eye again. He began to tell her about the illegal ivory trade and the flesh peddlers (as he called them), and seemed to enjoy sharing stories of how he had thwarted them with his own particular brand of subterfuge.

In that respect, he hadn't changed at all and it gladdened her heart to hear him revel in his schemes. She noted, with a wry smile, that his was a Robin Hood style of justice that was strangely apt for a man who, underneath his intimidating exterior, cared deeply about social justice. His enthusiasm was infectious; she laughed when he told her of intricate plans come to fruition and felt joy at his evident delight at tales of the children they had rescued. When he told her of the stories without happy endings, the times they had been too late, she cried, both for those who had been lost and for him, the man she loved and his punishing quest for forgiveness.

Although his depressed affect seemed to have eased to some extent, he remained extremely prickly when it came to matters of his health. She encouraged him to walk with her in the twisted wilderness that had been Frederick Hempstead's garden as they discussed his operations in Africa and all over the world, but she soon discovered that he became breathless and irritable in a relatively short space of time. The worst part of this was not being able to touch him; although their conversation flowed easily enough, he was no more prepared to allow her to initiate physical contact than he had been on that terrible evening she arrived.

When they strolled together she walked as close to him as she dared, desperate just to feel his warmth, or catch his unique smell that made her insides quiver without fail. Far from deterring her, his poorly condition only made her care for him more. She wanted to hold him as he had held her, to make him strong, to reach a point where they could care for one another equally. It occurred to her then that despite their apparent ease in one another's company, they had spoken very little of personal matters, and nothing at all of what they used to be to each other.

Sometimes in the evenings she would catch him looking at her, his eyes dark and full of regret. It was those times that she missed his touch the most, but without fail he would excuse himself, bidding her a polite goodnight before leaving her alone and ashamed of her feelings for him. The more he withheld any sign of physical affection, the more her desire for him consumed her, filling her with a desperate need to unlock those feelings in him and tear through the barriers he had put up.

Several weeks after her arrival, as the leaves on Frederick's knotted trees began to fall, she reached a decision. She slipped away to her room and called the college to request a leave of absence, which she was granted.

~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~

The next day they took one of their walks in the extensive grounds of the house, engrossed in the challenge presented by a new child trafficking ring based in northern Nigeria. This wasn't like the others, Red had explained – they were prolific, yet none of the children had turned up in brothels or factories in the city, and shoddy paperwork and corruption in transport offices made them impossible to track.

Liz paused as they reached the row of crooked apple trees that lined the end of the walkway. "You've been doing this for two years and you're used to seeing the same things every time – child prostitution, slave labor… maybe it's time you looked for zebras."

Slightly flushed with exertion, Red removed his hat and dabbed at his brow with a handkerchief. "Ok Lizzie, I'll bite. Zebras?"

"Nine times out of ten these kids will turn up in the usual places, but not this time. Who else is interested in kids apart from the usual sickos? What are the ages and genders of the missing kids?"

She watched Red's face as he studied her guardedly for a moment. Up until this point she had mostly listened, but this felt more like their old dynamic and she liked it.

"Boys. A little older than I'd expect but nothing out of the norm" he said hesitantly.

She nodded. "So let's assume that's a pattern – who is only interested in older boys, and lots of them?"

Red closed his eyes for a moment. "Child soldiers" he said quietly. "Children are easier to train. The market's ripe for it in that part of the world." He shook his head and then smiled at her, his head cocked to the side.

"Lizzie, you're sharp as ever. This may prove to be extremely helpful."

Emboldened by the affection and admiration she saw in his gaze she smiled back and stepped towards him, reaching out to touch his arm.

His smile vanished. "Lizzie-" it was unmistakably a warning tone but he didn't get to finish because at that moment his breath caught in his throat. He stepped backwards and put his palm against a tree trunk for support, breathing heavily. Instinctively she reached out for him again and he shook her off instantly as though her touch had burned him.

"I just need a minute" he said gruffly.

Liz felt desperation building inside. She'd been here weeks and had received very little sign of affection from him, absorbing the pain of rejection every time she tried to touch him or ask a personal question.

"You can't keep doing this" she said flatly.

He looked up at her, his jaw tight. "Doing what?"

"Pushing me away. God! You still can't accept help, can you? Not even after everything we've been through. Not even now you're-"

"Sick? _Weak_?" he spat. "Is that what you were going to say?"

She frowned and shook her head nervously. "Not exactly."

Having previously stepped away from her, he now pushed off from the tree and walked purposefully towards her, his gaze hard and almost predatory. When he reached her he placed his hands firmly on her shoulders, the heat of his palms searing her skin through her thin sweater.

"You know, that trick of yours is rather unbecoming. I'd appreciate it if you'd stick to profiling the traffickers, there's a good girl." He moved one hand from her shoulder and tucked a stray wisp of her hair behind her ear.

She felt equal parts shame and outrage; she'd craved his touch for weeks and it was almost like he knew it, as though he had purposefully chosen the moment his gesture was most likely to hurt her rather than bring her comfort. She bit her lip to stay the tears pooling in her eyes and, seemingly satisfied, he turned and stalked back to the house.

She didn't see him again until evening. Apparently unaffected by their earlier exchange, he had prepared a simple but delicious dinner of braised beef ravioli complete with a bottle of Chateau Margaux he assured her was from his own collection rather than Frederick Hempstead's dubious stocks. She couldn't bring herself to eat more than a few mouthfuls, but was grateful for the warmth of the wine and the courage it gave her to face the conversation she needed to have with him. Unfortunately, after clearing the plates from the expansive farmhouse-style table, he beat her to it.

"Lizzie, much as I have enjoyed your company these past weeks it occurs to me that your college semester begins next week and the time has come for you to depart. I wouldn't want you to jeopardise your career on my account." His tone was bright but distant. Her stomach churned, the few small bites of ravioli knocking against her insides. She looked up at him from the table, her thumb absently rubbing her scar.

"I already called them. I told them I need some time off."

She watched the subtle changes in Red's expression - interest perhaps, and apprehension.

"And the college - they accepted that? What reason did you give?"

She shifted uncomfortably. "It doesn't matter. I told them what I needed to in order to get time off."

His eyes narrowed. "What did you tell them, Lizzie?"

She sighed. "I told them I needed to look after a sick relative, but it was just what I needed to say…"

His face hardened. "I see. Well you can call them back and tell them that your services are not required by your _infirm_ relative." His voice dripped with bitterness.

"Red, it's not like that – I just needed to get time off. I want to stay with you" she faltered. "For as long as you'll have me."

He stared at her, his eyes wide and dark - almost frightened – and shook his head slowly. "Letting you go was perhaps the most painful thing I have ever had to do. I _certainly_ didn't do it only to see you throw your life away as a nursemaid for a weak, sick old man" he sneered. "I won't allow it."

It was like a punch in the gut. She'd come as close as she could to telling him how she felt about him. She'd asked him if she could stay with him indefinitely and his response was crushing.

"Even if it's my fault?" She whispered.

He frowned, not understanding. She took a deep breath, her eyes glassy. "It's my fault you're sick. Mr Kaplan told me about the lake. Your chest. You saved me and it did this to you."

She watched as cold comprehension dawned in his eyes, his lip curling in distaste. "So that's it." he said in a low voice. "I wondered why you were so intent on staying here… _Guilt_ is the harshest taskmaster of them all. Well I can assure you that you are in no way to blame. You are _absolved_ Lizzie" he said bitterly. "And now you can go."

"That's not what I want" she whispered.

His eyes darkened further and she could feel his anger building. It had, she suspected then, been building for weeks, simmering beneath the surface, concealed under his protective layers of stories and joviality. How could she not have seen it? The way he looked at her sometimes it was almost like he hated her.

"The moment I walked into the FBI and demanded to speak only with Elizabeth Keen I knew that I would risk my life for you…that I would die for you. That was always part of the deal. Understanding the magnitude of that, perhaps you could take _one moment_ to consider how difficult it is for me to have you here."

She watched as he reached for a bottle on the side and poured himself a glass of scotch, which he downed in one.

"You don't think that I want you too?" She said desperately. "The night I came here – that guy hit me and Dembe came and I realized how much I needed you. Then I came here and found out you were sick-"

He cut her off ruthlessly " _Oh yes_ , I imagine that was very disappointing for you. The doe-eyed, innocent little college teacher had an itch she couldn't scratch, so she came to the hideous, violent criminal for her fix only to find him like _this_. Well I can assure you I'm still _quite_ capable of satisfying you" he said nastily. "What will you do after I've made you come, Lizzie?" he hissed. "After I've made you _scream_? Carry on with your life until the next time some city boy raises a fist to you and it makes you miss me?"

Liz's mouth hung open in shock and tears pricked her eyes. She'd never heard him speak that way, to her or anyone.

"Red, no-"

But he had already stormed out of the room, his footsteps heavy on the stairs. She sat there numb for a second before she felt her legs move under her and followed him upstairs. She pushed open his bedroom door and he spun round with a face like thunder, his cheeks and neck reddened by alcohol while a vein throbbed angrily on his temple.

"Get out" he growled.

She took a deep, shuddering breath. "I'm not going till you listen to me."

He was staring at her now with an ominous mixture of emotion churning in his gaze; anger still, but underscored with pain, disgust and, unmistakably, desire.

"Lizzie, I'm warning you. You need to leave. Leave now before I give you _exactly_ what you came here for."

She shook her head in confusion. "I don't understand. Please Red, I-"

"God help me I'll make you understand!" Her eyes widened in alarm as he stepped quickly towards her, his leaner figure giving his movements an almost feline quality. He gripped the back of her neck and twisted her round, pinning her against the wall with her cheek pressed firmly against the decorative plaster. Her limbs went numb with shock as she felt his body behind her, crushing her against the wall, his erection pressed threateningly against her ass. Her mind was swirling; she'd wanted him to touch her for so long, but not like this. He didn't need another reason to hate himself.

She froze as he ground himself against her jeans, his hand sweeping her hair to one side and exposing her neck. She felt his breath rasping on her ear and then heard him inhale deeply – he was _smelling_ her. When he spoke he sounded hoarse and desperate, his lips brushing against her ear and his words punctuated by sharp thrusts of his hips.

"Despite what you may think, I'm still a man Lizzie…I have limits…"

She tensed as she felt his knee come between her legs, spreading them against the wall, and then his hand sliding roughly up the inside of her thigh.

"You've been here for weeks…" he panted. "Is _this_ what you've been waiting for?"

She closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep, calming breath. "I am so sorry Red. Please believe I didn't come here to hurt you. I don't think you want to hurt me, either" she said carefully, trying to keep her voice steady.

He paused for a moment and then stepped back, allowing her space to turn and face him. When she did she found that he no longer looked angry, but desolate, his arms hanging dejectedly at his sides.

"I know you don't want to hurt me" he sighed. "It's worse than that. You want to punish yourself. You want to lower yourself to let the monster touch you and assuage some of your guilt. Let me tell you something Elizabeth…I'm not just a worthless criminal for you to treat as you please. I may be broken but I can still feel pain and I will not be used, even by you. I am not empty and corrupt any more than you are naive and innocent."

As he spoke she began to smile, even as tears slipped down her cheeks. He frowned at her, appalled. "What about this desolate exchange could you possibly find amusing Lizzie? Or do you want to add to the injury by laughing at me?"

She shook her head and gasped through her tears. "I'm not laughing Red, I'm happy."

He looked at her dumbfounded.

"I'm happy because I think you can finally understand. That you're not a monster. You deserve help, and kindness. I'm not a naive girl who has to be protected from everything. I have demons too, and I also need forgiveness." She paused to take a breath, shaking her head. "I'm not here because I want to use you, Red. I'm here because I love you. I love you with everything I am and I can't bear to not be with you."

He continued to stare at her for a moment before stepping backwards and sitting down heavily on the bed, putting his head in his hands. He suddenly seemed to have shrunk, as though the dissipation of his anger had taken inches off him. When he finally looked up at her it seemed as though he was looking at her from very far away.

"Darling girl. I'm so sorry. Please understand - my current condition only highlights how selfish it was of me to ever pursue a relationship with you."

Liz felt an angry lump rise in her throat. "You know what's selfish, Red? You, now. You don't need to be this sick. The people who love you are worried about you – Dembe, Mr Kaplan. Me. Mr Kaplan told me you refuse to seek treatment. That you could get better. You're doing so much good - all the people you help – and yet you continue to punish yourself. You think you deserve to suffer, but you don't. You could die if you carry on like this."

He shook his head, sighing. "People like me don't get happy endings. I never expected to survive this long - if I can do some good before I go, so be-it."

She was momentarily shocked into silence by the starkness of this statement, but then her hands balled into fists at her sides.

"No. You don't get to cop out like this. What was it you said to me once? I'm not going to beg for the privilege of helping you? Well I'm not. Tell me to go, Red. But don't do it for me, because I will spend the rest of my life loving you whether I get to spend it with you or not. Think about _that_."

Her heart pounding in her chest she turned on her heel and left the room. He stared after her, a lone tear making its way down the rough skin of his cheek.

TBC


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N Liz finds herself a home, while Red adapts to the light… Romangst. As near to fluff as you'll ever get from me. Only one more chapter to go – I've loved your reviews so much, don't stop now! I own nada.**

The next morning she woke late, the sun streaming through the window. She lay there for a moment watching the patterns of light dancing on the carpet, before a dull, radiating pain in her muscles reminded her of the horrible events of the night before. Her neck was stiff and sore, and her hips were bruised from where he had forced her against the wall. She thought about facing him in the cold light of day and felt sick to her stomach. For a profiler, she thought, she had misjudged the situation spectacularly. She had completely failed to read him properly over the last few weeks, to see that he was growing depressed, angry and volatile. But then, he had never made it easy for her to figure out what he was thinking. There were so many layers to him, and he was so _damaged_ …

Her mind returned to the night before, the way he had looked at her like she was a gazelle and he a starving lion. She had almost forgotten how intense the force of his feeling for her could be - he'd hidden it so well for the majority of their acquaintance, measured affection and concern masking the storm raging underneath. The times when it was unleashed though, _God_ … it was like being swept away in a rip tide, struggling just to breathe. She wondered how far he would have gone last night if she hadn't said anything and realized with a dull horror that she didn't really know for sure. Misery and solitude had changed him, and she understood now why Dembe had wanted her to come here. Perhaps it was too late.

She showered and dressed quickly, certain only of the fact that they had to find a resolution one way or another. She wouldn't leave without it. Other than that, her thoughts bounced, propelled by a plethora of emotions. She loved him dearly and her heart ached with sadness for him, for the life of terrible pain and loss he had experienced. She hated him too, for weaving this web for her, for making her love him…for making her feel afraid.

As she passed his room she noticed that the door was ajar and she tentatively pushed it open. He wasn't in there, but nor had she expected him to be at this late hour. The bed was made neatly and the curtains were open, the same bright sunlight flickering in through the windows from a different angle. She shuddered slightly and went downstairs to find him. He wasn't in the living room or the kitchen, and both areas had been tidied much as his bedroom had been. There was no trace in the kitchen of their meal from the night before, or the wine and scotch that had fueled his outburst. She looked out of the window across the garden, watching a breeze wrench the browning leaves from the trees. The house felt perfectly quiet, and still and empty.

When she turned back from the window she saw a bunch of keys and an envelope on the kitchen table where they had sat the night before. " _Elizabeth_ " it said on the front, in deep, red ink. A strange numbness crept over her as she reached for it, and the thick, expensive writing paper felt coarse between her cold fingertips.

 _Elizabeth,_

 _I have to go away for a short while. I write this with no expectation that you will be here when I return, only the hope that you can find some solace in the knowledge that you have meant more to me than you will ever know. I spoke to you once of living in darkness. You are the most radiant soul I have ever known Lizzie – the time has come for me to adapt to the light._

 _All my love - always._

 _Raymond_

She felt sick as she read the letter, her stomach jolting as though she had woken up from a dream in which she was falling from a cliff-edge. It was strangely formal, and achingly sad. She thought painfully that it read like he was leaving her forever, like a suicide note, but it wasn't that, she reasoned. He was returning, though _when_ he hadn't said. The last time he had left for 'a short while' was after Anslo Garrick's attack on the post office. He had been gone for over a month. His handwriting slanted to the right, each letter beautifully formed - infuriatingly so – as though this missive hadn't been at all difficult for him to write.

She replaced the letter on the table, and reached for the keys, her hands shaking. The key fob had a yellowing label which simply read _F.H._ The keys to Frederick Hempstead's house - Red's house. Confused, she picked up the letter again and a memory surfaced of sweat and smoke and Red, calm and contemplative in the midst of chaos – _if a ray of light were to make it into the cave… would I become less hideous…_ She pressed the letter against her lips and closed her eyes.

That evening she cooked a modest meal in Frederick's kitchen, as she had done many times over the past few weeks. The house was very well stocked with food and supplies, as though its occupant had been concerned about a siege or a natural disaster. She ate alone at the big kitchen table, before settling in the living room. She looked at the books, at Frederick's strange scribbles and at the countless files from Red's latest endeavors, now neatly piled on the table. As she surveyed the room it occurred to her that she was living a moment of Red's life – sitting alone with books and files in a comforting home in the painful knowledge that it was someone else's home, and someone else's comfort. Tomorrow, she would leave, she thought. He was gone, and didn't expect her to stay. It was time to resurrect Annabelle Lasseter's life, such as it was.

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But she didn't leave the next day. Or the day after. Oh, she had packed her bags, and each night she cleaned the kitchen so that she would be able to get away early in the morning. But much as it was still the deceased Mr Hempstead's house she felt Red's presence there like a warm blanket wrapped around her, anchoring her there. The pantry still held several bottles of his favorite 30 year old Balvenie, and although the living room had been aired out, a faint smell of smoke, wood, and vanilla remained from his cigars.

Then there were his case files. She began to flick idly through these on her second day of solitude; by the end of the week she had become thoroughly engrossed in the puzzles posed by the cartels' activities and the children who were missing all over the world. She began to make her own notes, drawing connections between cases where she saw them, and then progressed to a wall chart, which she constructed in the living room using garden string and tacks. She paid careful attention to Red's notes as she worked, and found that responding to his theories and thought processes was almost like having a conversation with him.

A week or so after Red's departure she was going over a new case file with a mug of coffee in hand when she heard the front door open. She froze for a moment, her heart thumping. What if it was him? What if it _wasn't_ him? Swallowing her fear she rose and stepped into the hallway. When she rounded the corner she was greeted with a warm smile from Dembe. "Elizabeth!"

She found herself running to give him a hug, which he returned enthusiastically, as if they were old friends. "Hi Dembe. I'm so glad to see you."

"Not as glad as I am to see you Elizabeth. To see you here."

She was suddenly very aware of the fact that she had stayed in the house without permission, without informing anyone, and, truthfully without any sort of plan. "Oh. I… I was going to leave, but I guess I didn't. I hope that's ok."

Dembe looked at her incredulously. "Of course. This is your house as much as his."

Liz looked at him questioningly but before she could ask what he meant she was distracted by a loud whistle from Dembe who had stepped into the living room. "You've been busy!"

"I had a look at some of the files to see if I could help and it got away from me a bit" she said sheepishly.

He turned and looked at her with equal parts interest and admiration. "I think you'd better tell me everything."

She wrapped her arms around herself. "I will. But first you have to tell me something. Where is he, Dembe? Is he ok?"

Dembe frowned. "He did not tell you?"

"We had a fight" she said quietly. She paused and then retrieved the letter from the kitchen and handed it to him. She watched in confusion as Dembe scanned the note, the corners of his mouth turning up at first before he broke into a gentle laugh. "I see what the problem is."

"You do?"

Dembe nodded earnestly. "Mmmm, too busy being romantic to tell you jack shit about what you need to know." He smiled and she suddenly felt a bubble of laughter rising up in her throat, like everything in the world was utterly insane but it didn't matter. Dembe waited patiently for her to calm down before ushering her to sit, his expression now serious.

"Elizabeth, you know that Raymond has been ill. It is my understanding that Mr Kaplan has arranged for him to receive treatment in Switzerland."

Liz's mouth went dry. "Is he going to be ok?"

Dembe nodded. "I have much hope that he will be – thanks to you. His illness is one of the reasons I have become more involved in his work. He was no longer able to travel to Africa. The climate is bad and he can no longer defend himself." He paused, and looked almost pityingly at the young woman sitting beside him. "I know that he has not always done right by you. He should have told you the truth. But I believe you care for him, and now he has accepted that he needs treatment. You have done what I could not, and for that I am eternally grateful."

She realised that although she had been shocked to see Red ill and weakened, she hadn't really grasped what it would mean for someone with his lifestyle. He was in constant danger, he had to be ready to move at a moment's notice. To be weak and vulnerable must have been terrifying, and it hurt her heart to think that his need to punish himself was greater than the fear he must have felt.

After that day, Dembe visited her at Frederick's house fairly frequently, and she took him through the progress she had made with Red's case files. She found that they worked well together; he was thoughtful and insightful, with a gentle humor that did much to stave off the deep loneliness she had felt. Mr Kaplan also dropped by a couple of times, observing her and Dembe's charts with a wry smile and making comments to the effect that they would surely bring the fires of the global south raining down on them and expect her to clean up the mess. She began to feel strangely at home in Frederick's house, a feeling which was prompted in part by the fact that Dembe and Mr Kaplan behaved a little as though it _were_ her home, asking permission to stay over when necessary, or to make use of various supplies.

One day in late fall she was alone in the garden, contemplating her strange new life. It was a bright, crisp day and after having walked the length of the garden she leant against one of the apple trees before a fancy took her and she reached up and swung herself onto a low branch. There she perched, enjoying the smell of fall leaves, and thinking that however small and hidden her life had become, at least it was hers, and she could finally be herself, in peace.

"Lizzie?"

She held her breath. The voice was deep and glorious and unmistakably his. Balancing herself on the branch she turned her head and looked up the garden towards the house. There he stood, his head cocked to the side, a quizzical smile on his face.

She gasped as she took in his appearance. He was still slim – possibly even more so than he had been – but he looked healthier than she had ever seen him. His sickly pallor had been replaced by a warm, even glow, which spread from his face to the 'v' of exposed chest under his shirt. He wore a beige vest and pants tailored to fit beautifully, the unbuttoned collar giving him a relaxed appearance.

He was halfway down the garden now, and she braced herself against the tree to jump down. It wasn't a high branch by any means, but in her haste she landed awkwardly, her foot hitting an uneven patch of grass and twisting over.

"Lizzie!" He was by her side in an instant, his face etched with concern. "My God, are you alright? What were you doing up there?"

She looked up and saw his earnest expression, and was suddenly overcome with the strangeness of this reunion, the terrible memory of him angry and threatening juxtaposed with how relaxed he looked now, how loving and concerned. "You're here." It was all she could manage.

He shook his head in wonderment and a warm smile crept over his features. "So are you, Lizzie" he said quietly. He extended a hand to help her up, but she hissed in pain as she tried to put weight on her ankle. "I guess I'm too old to be climbing trees" she breathed.

He knelt beside her hesitantly. "May I… would you let me help you?"

She looked at his tentative expression and understood then that she was not the only one struggling with the memory of their last exchange. She nodded and he leant down.

"Put your arm around my neck" he instructed.

She did as he asked and wrapped her arm around the collar of his shirt and the warm skin above it. The feel of skin on skin was electric. She expected him to help her walk, but instead he slipped one arm around her waist and the other under her knees, lifting her into his arms.

"Red, you'll hurt yourself! If you could just help me walk-"

He smiled softly at her. "It's fine, Lizzie. I'm fine."

If he was struggling he didn't show it, although he was uncharacteristically silent on the way back to the house. As he carried her through the avenue of winding trees, she couldn't help but settle into his arms, resting her head on his shoulder and luxuriating in the unique scent of his neck. It felt like a blessed home coming. She belonged right there, tucked in his arms, basking in the love and protection he offered. Unable to resist, she pressed her mouth to his neck in a gentle kiss, her lips lingering on his skin – he said nothing but she felt him swallow, hard.

When they entered the living room he set her down gently on the sofa, and went to retrieve an ice pack from the kitchen. If he was surprised by the charts and papers everywhere, he didn't show it. He was utterly focused on her. Sitting on a stool in front of her, he gently removed her shoe and lifted her foot into his lap, cradling it on his knee. She gasped as he placed the ice pack over the swelling on her ankle, his warm hands a tantalizing contrast to the cold. She observed him intently as he tended to her, his hand gently rotating her ankle to assess the damage.

"You look well. Incredible, actually" she ventured.

He paused before meeting her gaze, looking up at her from under long, golden eyelashes.

"I still have a way to go – Mr Kaplan's witch doctor is force-feeding me various drugs that aren't _nearly_ as fun as drugs ought to be. But as I understand it I am now in quite good health. As are you" he continued matter-of-factly. "It's just a sprain. Nothing to worry about."

She assumed that he would stop his ministrations at that point, but he continued almost unconsciously, his hand caressing her with the lightest touch. Holding the ice pack in place, he gently stroked the arch of her foot, his eyes following the path of his thumb. To her it felt shockingly erotic, but his concentration and even tone seemed to undermine the possibility that his actions were fueled by anything other than concern for her well-being. They hadn't been intimate in over two years, and the events of that year were so unparalleled that were it not for the memory of his touch burned into her skin, she could doubt it ever happened. It was strange to have him suddenly inspect part of her so closely, and she was grateful she had painted her toenails a tasteful pink.

"You know" he murmured almost under his breath "it was once considered risqué for a woman to expose her ankle to a man. It was…erotic."

It was like he'd read her mind. As he rolled his tongue around that last word his voice swirled in her belly, amplifying the longing that keened inside her. She leaned forward and put her hand on his knee, but he drew back, shaking his head.

"Lizzie. My behavior towards you the last time I was here… you shouldn't forgive that."

"You're not the only one with a violent temper" she responded quietly. "The warrior gene, remember?"

He bit the inside of his cheek and looked away for a moment, as if staring into another age. "There was time when I didn't think I was at all capable of violence. The thought that I could hurt anyone was…inconceivable." He sighed. "I've rarely thought about the past. But when I have, it seems to me that I've drifted so very far from home. From the man I was."

She drew her arms around herself, her lip trembling slightly as she spoke. "I wish I didn't know what I'm capable of. But I do. We've both been forced to find out. Red – we both need to find our way home."

She removed her foot from his unresisting hands and patted the sofa in silent invitation. His eyes were dark with emotion as he moved to sit next to her. She grasped his hand in hers and he looked at their twined fingers before meeting her shimmering blue eyes.

It was, she thought afterwards, what their first kiss should really have been. It wasn't fuelled by anger, or pain or desperation, or even lust. It was only love. Their lips met softly - tentatively even - brushing together in a sweet caress, his bottom lip covering hers. She pulled back slowly and felt his arms come around her, drawing her gently to his chest. She closed her eyes then, and found herself wondering if it was at all possible that she was already home.

TBC


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N Here is the final chapter of Sin. I have enjoyed writing this fic tremendously, and have been overwhelmed and inspired by the comments and conversations it has generated. Many thanks to you all. Also thanks to Fictional Addictions for the artwork that inspired the final part of this work. This chapter has everything you'd expect from this fic – Smut, angst, fluff. NSFW. You've been warned. For the last time, I don't own the characters but I so wish I did. Much love. NTD x**

That night they had dinner together and retired to the sitting room. Red went to the kitchen to retrieve the Balvenie and two tumblers, but when he returned she had left the room. His stomach tightened slightly as he made his way upstairs to find her. As he suspected, the door of his bedroom was open and a warm glow from the lamp spilled out into the corridor. He stepped inside and saw her standing by the window staring out into the courtyard, the trees casting shadows on her reflection.

"Lizzie." His voice was low with a hint of a plea in it. He held out his hand to her, gesturing for her to follow him from the room.

When she didn't respond he walked slowly towards her, until both their reflections were visible in the dark glass. "Not here, sweetheart" he said quietly. "Not this room."

She caught his eye in the window pane and shook her head slowly. "I don't want to run away from the past anymore." She saw his eye twitch in the glass and continued to watch his face in the reflection as she slowly removed her top, followed by her bra, before sliding her jeans over her hips and down, pulling the right leg delicately over her swollen ankle. His eyes burned in the glass as he watched her hook her fingers into her panties and push them down to join the rest of her clothes on the floor. Her nipples hardened in anticipation as she saw him approach in the reflection, until he was close enough for her to feel his breath on her neck and the soft wool of his suit pants on her bare legs.

He brought his hands to rest on her shoulders, his palms warm against her skin, his eyes drinking in the reflection of her body in the window. "You are _breath-taking_." His voice was molten, the timbre sending exquisite tremors through her. When he spoke again he bent his head down, his lips brushing her ear. "Is this truly what you want, Lizzie? Because I won't…" He paused, shaking his head. "I can't let you go again."

At that she turned slowly to face him, the tips of her breasts brushing against his vest. Her eyes were wide and clear when they met his. "Do you love me?"

He looked down at her, the perfect little soul in front of him, his eyes almost black. "Yes" he said, his voice rough. "I love you sweetheart. It's as though that fire never went out. It's burned steady for thirty years, Lizzie" he said wistfully. "My sweet, darling girl." He took her hand and brushed his lips over her scar. Swallowing hard as he met her gaze again, he saw her nod slightly. She finally understood.

"This is what I want" she whispered. She pressed her lips to his as she spoke and he wrapped his arms around her, his fingers sliding into her hair. It began as a chaste kiss, but he could feel her, naked and quivering with need in his arms, and a surge of desire swelled inside him. He couldn't help but deepen the kiss, his hand holding the back of her head and his tongue penetrating her mouth as she parted her lips. He groaned as he felt her move her hips against him. Finally breaking the kiss, he pushed her gently down onto the window seat and sank to his knees in front of her, as though he were kneeling at an altar on which she was a sacred offering. Looking up at her, he ran his hands tantalisingly slowly up her legs, brushing his thumbs up the inside of her thighs and down again.

Bending his head, he eased her legs over his shoulders, kissing her inner thighs and allowing his teeth to graze her as he sucked the sensitive flesh. He relished her smell and the feel of her smooth, milky skin until he elicited small, delightful noises of anticipation from her and her head rolled against the window. Unable to resist further, he tugged her hips forward and brought his mouth to where she needed it, groaning in pleasure as she writhed in ecstasy beneath him. He felt her slender hand grip the back of his neck, holding him in place while he lathed her with his tongue, and the tight ache in his pants became almost unbearable. He looked up and saw her eyes squeezed shut as she teetered on the edge of oblivion. Slowly and deliberately he used two fingers to open her, sliding them carefully inside her, waiting for his moment.

"Look at me" he said breathlessly, his voice almost a purr -"Lizzie…look at me when you come." Circling her clit with his thumb, he moved his fingers inside her finding the sweet spot he knew she couldn't resist and her eyes flew open, the shocking blue dark with pleasure. She came with a shuddering moan the moment he twisted his fingers inside her and it was too much for him, the feel of her tightening around his fingers as she orgasmed, his aching cock rubbing against the seam of his pants as he moved his hips helplessly in time with his fingers - "Oh god, Lizzie… _fuck_ …"

In her haze it occurred to her that she had never heard him properly swear before. "Are you alright?" she panted, and he laughed hard, shaking his head. "Well, I've ruined a fine pair of pants, but otherwise I'm glorious."

She looked at his smiling face and giggled, her cheeks turning even redder than they already were.

"Been a while, has it?" she said, teasingly. "Shall we pick this up tomorrow?"

A wicked smile crossed his face and before she knew it he had scooped her laughing and wriggling into his arms and placed her on the bed. "You little minx - I'm not _nearly_ done with you."

She lay back against the pillows and watched breathlessly as he carefully removed his clothing and cleaned himself off before settling next to her on the bed, his large hands running over her body as though he was relearning every curve, every mark, every inch of her.

"Red?" she said tentatively. "How long _has_ it been? Have you…"

He raised his eyes to look at her. "You can ask, Lizzie. You want to know whether I have been with anyone else since you." She nodded and his eyes softened. "The answer is no. After you…No."

"Oh." She looked down for a moment and he took her hand.

"But you have" he said gently. "Don't be embarrassed sweetheart."

"Only once" she said, meeting his eyes with difficulty. "It was awful. I missed you so much."

He frowned at that and then shook his head. "Lizzie that was no way for you to live" he said quietly. "You're a healthy young woman with needs and desires. I never wanted to prevent you from being happy."

"You sound like you wanted me to be with other men."

His eyes narrowed and she watched nervously as his lip twitched in distaste. "Never" he growled. "But above all else I want you to have the life you deserve. I'd sacrifice anything for that. To give you what you want."

She studied his face carefully. "Red…I need to ask you something." She felt him tense slightly, but persevered. "When Dembe arrived and found me at the house I wasn't sure if it was alright for me to be here. He said that it was as much my house as yours. He and Mr Kaplan – they acted like I was supposed to be here. What did he mean?"

Red sighed and pressed a gentle kiss onto her temple. "A number of my properties are in your name as well as mine. Or one of my aliases." She raised her head immediately to respond but he squeezed her arm reassuringly and continued. "It has nothing to do with how our relationship has progressed. It's been this way for some time. Since long before we became intimate."

She turned on her side to face him. "I don't understand. Why?"

He smiled at her sadly and continued to gently stroke the curve of her hip and thighs. "I suppose, during my darkest times, it brought me some comfort to give you things. Whether it was college tuition, or a house I imagined you might like. Even if you didn't know I had done it. Even if you didn't know I was there at all. This house… the way the light flickered through the trees… it made me think of you. My light."

She curled into his side, her thigh resting on his and her head tucked into his shoulder. "I don't know how you can still see me that way. After the terrible things I've done."

She heard him sigh, his breath ruffling her hair as he raised his hand to her chin, tilting her face up to meet his eyes. "People are like stained-glass windows. They shine when the sun is out. But when the darkness comes, their true beauty only shows if there is a light within. Lizzie, you shine like a beacon in the night."

She smiled and raised her eyebrows. "What's that, another fortune cookie?"

He shook his head. "Another Elizabeth. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. A very wise woman who clearly foresaw your beauty… your strength…your tenacity…" As he spoke he kissed her forehead, then her cheek, and finally her mouth, before rolling her onto her back, his body covering hers. She gasped as she felt him hard and thick, pressed against her, and arched up to meet him as he began to suckle her swollen nipples, one then the other, while his hand slid down between her legs.

"Impressive" she breathed.

His eyes glinted wickedly as he positioned himself at her entrance. Easing into her until he was fully sheathed, he smiled while she struggled to control her cries as he began to move inside her.

"Oh sweetheart…you have no idea."

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Weeks passed and the brown leaves in Frederick's garden vacated the trees, the mild fall giving way to crisp air and bare branches. Their days were mostly spent working in earnest on Red's cases. Liz enjoyed catching him up on the work she had done in his absence, both for the intellectual exchange it afforded and, she had to admit, for the look of pure admiration and respect she saw on his face when she presented profiles of cartels and pointed out links between cases. Dembe often joined them for a briefing, before leaving to run operations in Africa and India, armed with the information and plans cooked up by his employer and his beautiful partner.

Whilst their days were spent hard at work, their nights were spent in luxury. As the weather turned cold, Red began to expertly lay wood fires in the hearth, the flickering flame casting warm shadows on the walls and illuminating his golden eyelashes. The first time they made love in front of the fire was a profound moment for both of them, the crackling of the flames and smell of wood smoke conjuring difficult memories that they determinedly remade with their bodies. Nothing about them was simple, or ordinary, they reasoned. Every memory, every scar, every judgement cast at them by others or by themselves, they absorbed it all, laughing, making love, and making amends.

As December dawned, Liz began to feel uneasy. Of all the things they had discussed, the future wasn't one of them, and she became more and more aware that the sabbatical she had taken from the college was ending. It was time to make a decision. She had also noticed that Dembe's visits had become more frequent, and other members of Red's team had also put in appearances. Much as she enjoyed Dembe's company, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was brewing that she wasn't privy to. She didn't have to wait long to find out.

Dembe arrived one afternoon and he and Red disappeared into the living room, closing the door behind them. After an hour, she steeled herself and entered. As she stepped into the room both men turned to face her, their conversation coming to an abrupt stop. She stood with her hand on the door, a gnawing feeling of apprehension building in her stomach.

"Red?"

He looked at her, his expression unreadable, before turning to Dembe and putting his hand on his arm. "Give us a moment, my friend."

Dembe nodded and left the room, briefly placing his hand gently on Liz's shoulder as he walked past her. She looked back to Red who had moved to the window, his hand resting on the frame and his gaze directed out over the grounds. She swallowed and walked slowly to him. "What's going on?"

He worked his jaw and turned to face her. "Elizabeth I need to go away for a while. There's been a development in the Nigeria case we've been working on. Dembe received confirmation today that the cartel is moving their operation in a matter of weeks. We need to act quickly or they'll slip through our fingers."

Her face fell and he put his hand gently on her arm. "Sweetheart, this isn't something I can leave to my people. I need to be there for this one. They have managed long enough without me."

She swallowed. "Are you even well enough to travel to Africa?" she whispered.

He nodded gently. "I'm probably stronger than I was before I was before the cabal's little assassination attempt."

"I see" she said, stepping back from him. "You've recovered. And now you're leaving me." She felt sick to her stomach.

"No!" he exclaimed. "No Lizzie, never that. I treasure this life with you. But we can't hide from the world the rest of our lives. You have a career. I can't keep you from that. I promise I will return as soon as possible, and we will find a way to make this work."

Liz planted her feet squarely and folded her arms. He was making plans and decisions without her, again, and she felt a horribly familiar frustration at being made to feel like a child. Well not this time, she thought. She looked him in the eye defiantly.

"I'm coming with you."

She watched her statement register on his face as he frowned. He said nothing, so she gathered herself and continued. "You said yourself that I have been instrumental in the work that you're doing, that you couldn't have done it without me. And I was a trained field agent - I can handle myself. Why shouldn't I come with you?"

The corner of his mouth twitched and he studied her for a moment. "Lizzie… the work you have done has been extraordinary. And believe me I know what you're capable of as a field agent. But just because you are capable, that doesn't make it right for you." He shook his head and smiled sadly at her. "I will not put you in harm's way ever again. This isn't the life for you, sweetheart."

She set her jaw firmly. "It seems to me I'm already living this life, Red. And I'm finally happy."

His eyes widened a fraction and she couldn't tell if it was wonder or fear she saw in his gaze. Whichever it was, she could feel herself gaining ground. He shifted uncomfortably and went to sit down on the sofa, putting some distance between them. He drummed his fingers on the back of the sofa for a moment before meeting her eye again.

"I'm sorry sweetheart. You are still Annabelle Lasseter and she can't travel with a notorious criminal. You're a college teacher on sabbatical – you can't turn up helping me broker deals in Africa."

Liz raised an eyebrow. "I haven't been Annabelle in a while. In fact, I don't think I ever was."

He smiled at her sadly and spoke softly, as though breaking bad news. "As much as you _are_ Elizabeth Keen, you have to know that identity is no longer viable. It's too high profile. Too dangerous. Travelling with me as Elizabeth Keen would raise questions for the authorities as well as for our enemies, who remain manifold."

"Actually I don't feel like Elizabeth Keen either anymore. I felt like it was my right to own that name, but it belongs to my past. I need an identity that acknowledges who I am now. That acknowledges how I feel and the future I want."

Her heart began pumping blood harder and harder until she could hear it in her ears as she realized what she was about to do. He was completely still now, his eyes wide and fixed on her and his shoulders tense. She stood tall and took a deep breath.

"Elizabeth Reddington. Scott-Reddington. That's who I want to be."

~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~BL~

Liz watched from the window of the Mercedes as it drew up the formidable mountain scape of Lombardy, the Italian winter dotting frost over the grass even as the sun set over the mountain and village below. As she exited the car, the last of the sun danced on the ring of her left hand. It was a plain, platinum band with three rare dark sapphires; one, he had said, for the fire that united them, one for their reunion twenty-seven years later, and one for the future that they would share. The chapel was beautiful in daylight, but as the evening drew in it looked ethereal on the mountainside, the candle light from inside shining through the stained glass like a beacon in the winter mist.

She didn't need a ring, or a church wedding, she had said. She just wanted to be with him. They couldn't afford to delay their travel to Africa. Yet he had insisted – even if their honeymoon would be most unconventional, involving unfavorable climates and dangerous, illegal activities – that their wedding would be something they could treasure. He knew of a chapel, he had said, hidden in the mountains in a place of true peace and beauty.

As she looked around her, she knew that he had understood what she needed. She needed him, but she also needed a rite of passage, an occasion on which her true friends could acknowledge who she had become. Dembe stood beside the car with a gentle smile, and Mr Kaplan was already inside the chapel, along with Aram and Samar, who had expressed genuine joy (if not surprise) at the news of Red and Liz's nuptials. It was best, they had decided, that Ressler be kept in the dark for the time being. He would never really trust her again after Connolly, and her marriage to Reddington would only cement his suspicions, she thought sadly.

She could see Red standing down the steps from the chapel, alone, staring over the mountain scene. Telling Dembe she would come into the chapel momentarily, she picked up the hem of her dress and walked across the grass to where Red was standing. He leant on the stone balcony in the grounds of the chapel, his rich, dark suit off-set by a dark blue silk tie that reflected in her eyes as she reached him. He swallowed as he turned to face her, unable to find any words adequate to tell her how beautiful she was. Her dress was deepest red – the color of healed wounds – the brushed silk swathing her body like a dark caress against her pale skin. Her dark hair was twisted into loosely pinned curls, and she carried a small bouquet of wild flowers, prepared by a local florist friend of Red's.

He tilted his head to the side and smiled softly. "I can't describe how beautiful you are, nor would I try if I could. Henry James said that of the lakes in these mountains. That's how I feel when I look at you."

Liz's cheeks colored a little at his words, and she sighed happily, her breath visible in the cool air. His expression turned serious then and he clasped his hands together tightly. "Lizzie… You are about to give yourself to me. To this life we're about to embark on. And I can't pretend that this is what I wanted for you. I need you to know that it's not too late. If you feel _unsure_ … You could choose any life you want. And I would make it happen."

She stepped closer to him, her piercing blue eyes looking up at him from under dark lashes. "I know you would. Even if it killed you to do it." He nodded almost imperceptibly and she gently raised her hand to his cheek, her expression set with the stubbornness he had grown to know so well. "Raymond… this is the life I choose. I am here because I love you. It's time for you to accept that."

He drew himself up then, squaring his shoulders, a smile forming on his lips.

"Well then, Lizzie. It seems to me that you and I have been living in sin, in so many ways, for so long. Are you ready to start something new?"

He extended his hand to her and she clasped her fingers in his, smiling up at him, her face open and determined. "I am."

They turned and walked together up the stone stairs, over the threshold of the chapel and into their future, the candle light in the windows shining out into the night.

The End.


End file.
